I had completely forgotten Ricks. Here was danger. The sight of this tall, stooping vulture of a man sent a chill crawling up my spine.
“Mornin’,” he said, squinting at me. “Where’s Carl?”
I picked up the rag and began to wipe my sweating hands with it.
“Mr. Jenson is away. What do you want?”
“Away?” He moved a few steps into the shed. The dog moved with him, keeping close to his right leg. “What do you mean— away?”
“What do you want?”
“Look, young fella, it’s my business what I want and not yours. You’re the hired hand, aren’t you, or do you suddenly own this place?”
“I don’t own it. I’m asking you—what do you want?”
“Where’s that Jezebel? Isn’t she here?”
“I don’t know what you mean. What Jezebel?”
He leered at me.
“His wife. Who do you think you are kidding? Where is she?”
“If it’s any business of yours—she’s in Wentworth.”
“So you’re in charge?”
“Someone has to be.”
He leaned forward and scratched the dog’s head. The dog flinched as if expecting a blow.
“Where’s Mr. Jenson gone?”
“He’s away on business.”
He gave the dog a sudden impatient shove with his leg as he asked, “What business?”
“You’d better ask him.”
He eyed me, moving a few steps forward.
“When will he be back?”
“I don’t know: a couple of months: maybe not so long.”
“A couple of months?” His mean face showed his surprise. “What’s going on around here? Didn’t he take his wife with him?”
“Look, I’m busy,” I said curtly. “Mr. Jenson won’t be back for a couple of months. What do you want?”
“I want to see him. It’s important. Where is he?”
“Somewhere in Arizona. He’s buying a filling station if you must know.”
“Is that right?” He put his head on one side, squinting at me. “Another filling station? I guess he has more money than sense. You mean he didn’t take his wife with him?”
“No.”
“She’s staying here while he’s away?”
“Yes.”
I could see his dirty mind was already buzzing like a beehive.
“Well, I’ll be darned! I always thought he was an old fool, but I didn’t imagine he would be that much of a fool.”
“Who cares what you think?”
He stared at me, then his crafty, mean face lit up with a sly grin.
“Well, I can’t call you a fool. You seem to know a good tiling when you find it, don’t you?”
“Mr. Jenson told me about you,” I said, and I didn’t bother to conceal my contempt for him. “He said you were the biggest scrounger in the district. He said if you ever came around here trying to take something, I was to throw you out. Are you getting out or do I throw you out?”
“Is that what he said?” The sly grin slipped a little. “He said that about his own brother-in-law? You take it easy, young fella. If Carl is fool enough to leave you and that wife of his alone together, it’s no skin off my nose. More fool he: that’s what I say. I’ve got to see him. What’s his address?”
“I don’t know.”
He took off his straw hat and scratched his dirty, scaly scalp while his little eyes probed my face.
“I’ve got to talk to him. I want his signature on my pension papers. He always signs them. You must know where he is.”
“I don’t know! He’s somewhere in Arizona. He’s moving around. He said not to expect to hear from him until he got back.”
He gave the dog a sudden flick with his hat before putting the hat back on his head. There was now an alert, suspicious expression on his face.
“She must know how to get hold of him.”
“I tell you neither of us do!”
“Then what am I going to do about my pension papers? If I don’t get them signed, I don’t get my pension.”
“Get someone else to sign them.”
He shook his head.
“I can’t do that. Carl always does it. If I get someone else to do it, those dopes will want to know why. They could hold up my pension: then what would I have to live on?”
“I can’t help that,” I said. “I haven’t his address. If I had, I’d give it to you. You’ll have to wait until he gets back.”
He continued to stare at me, his head on one side. The dog stared at me too.
“Two months you say? What am I going to live on for two months while I’m waiting?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care!” I found I was shouting at him and I throttled my voice back. “Why don’t you do some work for a change?”
He didn’t like that. His face turned mean.
“Don’t talk that way to me, young fella. I’m a sick man. My doctor won’t let me work. I have a bad heart. Are you sure she doesn’t know where he is?”
“How many more times do I have to tell you—neither of us do!”
There was a pause while he bent to pat his cringing dog. Then he said, “Suppose something happened? Suppose she got ill? Suppose the place burned down? You’d have to tell him, wouldn’t you? How would you find him in an emergency?”
“She’s not going to get ill and this place isn’t going to burn down! Now, get out! I’ve things to do.”
“If I don’t get my pension papers signed I’ll have no money.” His voice had changed into a whine.
I was tempted to give him a few dollars to get rid of him, but I realised the danger of this. Once I began handing this scrounging rat money, he would keep pestering me.
“Oh, get the hell out of here!” I shouted. “I’m busy!”
I went back to the Station wagon and began to tighten the bolts on the magneto.
“When will she be back?” he asked.
“I don’t know—late.”
There was a pause, then he said, the whine still in his voice, “How about lending me twenty dollars?”
“It’s not my money to lend—beat it!”
I was now working on the magneto, my back turned to him. I was putting pressure on a nut when he said, “I guess if I wrote to the Arizona police they’d find him fast enough.”
He had spoken casually, but to me it was like taking a punch under the heart. The spanner slipped and I lost the skin off a knuckle.
I tried to assure myself that the State police wouldn’t do a thing about such an inquiry, but there was the risk that they might. If Ricks made enough of it, created suspicion, they might just possibly get in touch with the Wentworth police, and some smart, inquiring cop might come out here and start asking questions. He might even be smart enough to recognise me.
“Mr. Jenson would like it fine to have the police looking for him,” I said, trying to make my voice sound casual. I sucked my damaged knuckle. “You be careful what you do. He’d be so mad he’d never sign your goddamn papers.”
“Well, I’ve got to find him!” His voice was now aggressive. “If you can’t tell me where he is, the cops might. You talk to her. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t told her where he could be found and she isn’t telling you. I’ll come out tomorrow. You tell her that. If she doesn’t know, I’m going to write to the Arizona police.”
By now I had my face under control and I turned.
“Okay, okay, I’ll talk to her. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know, but I’ll ask her.”
This was making a concession, and to a man like Ricks, it was a sign of weakness, but the idea of some nosy cop coming out here scared the life out of me.
He nodded: the sly grin once more in place.
“You tell her I’ll be out tomorrow evening. Well, I’ll run along. That reminds me. I’m nearly out of gas. I may as well fill up while I’m here. I’ll have to owe it to you. Carl wouldn’t mind.”
My one thought was to get rid of
him. I shouldn’t have let him have the gas, but I was sure if I didn’t, he would stay whining until he got it.
“Oh, help yourself, but let me get on with my work!”
“That’s a good fella.” He grinned widely. “You tell her I’ve got to get those papers signed. I’ll be out here tomorrow evening, around supper time “
He shambled off, followed by his dog, back to his car. I watched him fill the tank and then a couple of five gallon cans. He was one of those mean scroungers who grabbed a yard when you gave him an inch. He got in the car and drove off.
When he was out of sight, I went over to the lunch room. I felt in need of a drink. I poured a big shot of Scotch and drank it, then lighting a cigarette, I paced up and down, trying to assess the danger from this old vulture.
Would the Arizona police take action if he wrote to them? It depended on what he said. If he pointed out that Jenson had disappeared, and his wife and the hired hand were sleeping together, the police might react. Often enough I had read in the newspapers that murders had been discovered by neighbours passing on gossip and rumours to the police. If the police did make enquiries and couldn’t find any trace of Jenson coming out of Arizona—his description was an easy one to remember—they might alert the Wentworth police who were never overworked, and they could come out here. They would want to know who I was and where I had come from.
But how to shut Ricks’s mouth? The obvious way would be to give him money. That would hold him for a couple of months. Would he believe my story that at the end of this time, Jenson had found some other woman and had given Point of No Return to Lola? Unless we could show him a letter, telling him it had come from Jenson, he would most certainly not believe such a story. Had he ever seen Jenson’s handwriting? I thought it was more than likely. He most certainly knew his signature. It would be too dangerous to attempt to forge the letter.
The more I thought about it, the trickier the situation became. When dealing with a man of Ricks’s character, a man with nothing to do and with a flair for smelling out trouble, I would have to watch every move I made.
Finally, when the lunch trade started, I had to give up trying to solve the problem. I had to talk to Lola. We had a common enemy now. Maybe between the two of us, we could think of a way to stall Ricks.
Lola didn’t get back until after ten o’clock. By that time, I was pretty worked up, and I had found no solution how to deal with Ricks.
I had just finished clearing up the kitchen and stacking the dishes when I heard the sound of an approaching car. I looked out of the window and saw Lola driving the Mercury into the garage.
I went out and caught up with her as she was crossing over to the bungalow.
“I want to talk to you,” I said.
She quickened her step, ignoring me. I walked with her up the path, waited until she had unlocked the front door of the bungalow, then I crowded in with her.
She turned, her green eyes pools of fury.
“Get out!”
“We’ve got to talk,” I said. “Your pal George Ricks was here this morning.”
That gave her a jolt. She stiffened. Wariness took the place of anger in her eyes.
“I’m not interested. Get out!”
“You will be.”
I crossed the hall and entered the sitting room. I noticed she had washed out the blood stain in the carpet. I went over to an armchair and sat down.
She stood in the doorway, waiting. She had taken off her hat. Her red hair went well with the green dress. She looked pretty good.
“He wanted your husband to sign his pension papers,” I said. “He’s going to make trouble. He wanted to know where he could find Jenson.”
She didn’t say anything. Her face remained expressionless.
“I told him he was somewhere in Arizona. He said he had to get his papers signed or he wouldn’t get the pension. When I told him he would have to wait, he said he would write to the Arizona police and ask them to find him.”
That jolted her out of her sulky indifference. She moved into the room, shutting the door behind her. She walked over to a chair and sat down. The skirt of her green dress rode up over her knees. She didn’t attempt to pull it down. I didn’t even look twice. I had too much on my mind to bother about a pair of pretty knees.
“So …” She drew in a deep breath. “So much for your bright idea. Well, you’d better start thinking up another idea, hadn’t you?”
“Let’s quit fighting,” I said. “Ricks could make a lot of trouble for both of us. He’s coming here tomorrow night to talk to you. Between then and now we’ll have to decide what we should do about him. So stop fighting me and start thinking. We’re in this jam together, even if you don’t think so now. If the police come here, I’ll be in trouble and I’ll take care you’ll be in trouble too. How are we going to keep Ricks quiet?”
She reached for a cigarette and lit it. She let the smoke drift down her nostrils.
“Why worry about him? Open the safe, take your share and get out. I’ll go too. When he comes here again, we’ll have gone.”
“Is that the best you can do?” I said impatiently. “You’ve got that money on the brain! How can we walk out and leave this place deserted? Talk sense! Imagine someone coming here for gas and finding the place locked and empty. Imagine Ricks coming here. He would tell the police and there would be an investigation.”
“We could sell the place.”
“Could we? Is it yours to sell?”
She frowned at me. “What do you mean?”
“The only way you could sell it is to prove Jenson is dead and he has willed it to you. How are you going to prove he is dead without the police finding out he was murdered?”
“He wasn’t murdered! It was an accident!”
“You tell that to the police and see what happens!”
Her hands turned into fists. I could see by her expression that at last it was dawning on her the kind of trap we were in.
“Give me my share of the money and I’ll go,” she said. “You can stay here. What’s the matter with that? You can say I’ve gone to join Carl in Arizona, leaving you here to run the place.”
“Do you imagine Ricks would believe that? First, Jenson disappears: then you, and I have the place. He’d tell the police I had murdered you both to get it. They might not believe him, but they would come out here and investigate They would find out who I was. They might even find where I buried Jenson.”
That really jolted her.
“You aren’t telling me you have been mad enough to bury him here!”
“Where else do you imagine I have buried him? You didn’t’ help me, did you? How could I have got him in the Station wagon? He weighed over two hundred pounds. I buried him in the repair shed, and if they suspect I have murdered you two, they’ll start digging. If there’s one thing they are good at—it’s digging. They could find him.”
She ran her fingers through her thick hair with a movement of exasperation.
“What are you trying to tell me?” she demanded, her voice shrill. “That we have to stay here forever!”
“We have to stay here. I don’t know for how long. If we leave now, we’re sunk. They’ll dig the whole place up and they’ll find him, and then they’ll come after us. Our one hope is to stay here and make my story stick that he had gone off with another woman.”
“I’m not staying!” She pounded her fist on the arm of the chair. “I’ve had enough of it! I want that money! I’m going to have it!”
I waved my hand towards the safe.
“Go ahead and help yourself,” I said and got to my feet. “The money’s there if you can open the safe. Maybe when you have thought more about it, you’ll see I’m talking sense. You think about it.”
I walked out of the bungalow, leaving her, white-faced, her eyes pools of fear and rage.
From then on until midnight, I sat by the pumps, waiting for trade. The hot wind blew around me, stirring the dust and the sand, making my body feel
gritty and uncomfortable.
As I sat, staring into the darkness, my mind probed at the problem without getting anywhere. At least, now I didn’t feel entirely alone. The lights in the bungalow remained on. I was sweating it out, but she was too.
At half past midnight, I decided to go to my cabin and try to sleep. No truck nor car had come through during the past two hours. There seemed no point in sitting there in the hot wind waiting any longer. As I started towards my cabin, the light in the lounge of the bungalow went out and the light in her bedroom went up. She too, had the same idea.
I took a shower. It helped a little, but not much. I lay on the bed. I saw her light go out I tried to shut my problem out of my mind and go to sleep but it was useless.
The sound of my bedroom door opening jerked my mind out of its panicky thinking.
I half sat up, staring towards the door lit by the moonlight coming through the window.
A shadowy figure moved into the room. It was Lola. She paused in a puddle of moonlight that lay on the floor. She had on a green silk wrap which she held tightly round her.
We stared at each other, then she came to the bed and sat by my side.
“If we have to stay here together,” she said, her voice an intimate whisper, “there’s no need for us to remain enemies, is there?”
She leaned over me, her mouth seeking mine…
chapter nine
I
A band of sunlight coming through the chink in the blind woke me. I stretched, yawning, then lifting my head, I looked at the bedside clock. The time was twenty minutes past six. Lola had gone. It took me a few minutes to realise that she had spent the night with me.
There’s no need for us to be enemies she had said, but she hadn’t fooled me and she wasn’t going to fool me. I was sure all she thought about and all she planned for was to persuade me to open the safe. She was now attempting to break down my resistance by this new intimacy, hoping she would be able to influence me to change my mind and open the safe.
1960 - Come Easy, Go Easy Page 12