by Jim Thompson
Suddenly, I thought of something.
“Baby,” I said. “Mona, honey. Does your aunt have some other money around the house? I mean, if she hardly ever digs into this cache in the basement—”
“Well,” she hesitated, “I guess she must have; she keeps it in her room, probably. I don’t know because the door’s always locked, and she’s never let me go in there.”
“Uh-hmm,” I said. “She must have quite a bit, wouldn’t you say? After all, she’s got the day to day expenses of the two of you, and—”
“They’re not very much, Dolly. We eat mostly rice and beans, and things that are cheap. I have to shop all around—buy stuff that the stores are about to throw out. We don’t spend hardly anything.”
“Yeah, but still…”
“D-dolly…” She drew closer to me. “I didn’t w-want to tell you, but—I’ve had to do that—you know—a lot. I’ve had to do it for a long time. She’s m-made me, and that’s where…”
Jesus! It made me sick to think about it. Hustling this kid, making her hustle since she’d really been a kid…
“Never you mind, honey,” I said. “You won’t have to do it any more, so you just don’t think about it. I don’t.”
We were almost there, almost to the stores where I was supposed to let her out. She started getting the shakes again.
“Do I have to, Dolly? C-can’t we just take the money, and—”
I shook my head. “No, baby, we can’t. I mean, we really can’t. We’d have to travel—we’d have to do plenty of traveling. We’d have to have money to live on. We just couldn’t make it on this. It just ain’t enough, know what I mean?”
“Well…” She sat up on the seat, turned and looked at me eagerly. “I could get the rest, Dolly. There’s a lot more, and I could get it, too.”
“Huh! But you said—”
But she hadn’t said that. I’d just assumed that she’d cleaned out all the old girl’s cash. It was what I’d have done, if I’d been in a taking mood, and I supposed she had, too.
So there was more—a lot. But maybe there wasn’t. What did a lot mean to a kid like this?
My hands were shaking on the wheel. I gripped it tighter, fighting to keep the excitement out of my voice.
“Now, let’s just keep calm, baby,” I said. “Old Dolly’s in the saddle, and there’s nothing to get up in the air about. N-now—now, how much is there? Tell papa, baby. What do you m-mean when you say a—”
“Well…” She chewed her lip, frowning. “I’d have to count off for what I gave the man at the store, and this that I—”
“For God’s sake!” I said. “Don’t stop to do arithmetic problems! Spit it out! Just give it to me in round numbers.”
She gave it to me.
My hands jerked on the wheel. I almost ran up on the curb.
“M-Mona,” I said. “Baby, child. Sweet thing. Say that again.”
“A hundred—will it be enough, Dolly? A hundred thousand dollars?”
8
I sat and stared at her, kind of stunned, and she looked at me, anxious eyed, her breasts rising and falling. We were like that for a minute or two, her staring at me hopefully and me too shocked-stupid to say anything. And then her face went dead again, and she said I’d better take her on home.
“It’s all right, Dolly. I’m not afraid any more. She’ll k-kill me, and then it’ll all be over with and—”
“Hush your mouth, honey child,” I said. “She isn’t going to kill anyone. She isn’t, get me?”
“But she will! She’ll find out and—”
“Huh-uh. That ain’t the way it’s going to be, at all. Now, tell me something, baby. Where did an old bag like that get a hundred thousand dollars?”
“Well,” she hesitated, “I’m not sure, but…”
She couldn’t remember much of anything about her early life. But the old lady had let drop a few things, and piecing it all together she had a pretty good idea about the source of that hundred grand. At least, it sounded good to me.
I started up the car again and drove on toward her place. Thinking. Wondering just how to put the proposition up to her. Or whether I really wanted to put it up to her.
“One more thing, honey. I think this is going to be all right—I mean, it could be all right. I think I can work it out so’s you and I can go off together, and—and—” I couldn’t get the words out: what I really wanted to say. I swallowed and made another try, coming in at it from an angle. “This Pete Hendrickson character; remember him, honey? Now, just suppose that Pete—”
She shivered and turned her head. You know. Sick, shamed, scared, just at the mention of Pete’s name.
I gave her a little love pat, and called her a honey lamb.
“I’m sorry, baby. We won’t talk about Pete any more, about any of those dirty bastards your aunt made you—well, never mind. What I was going to say was—was—suppose someone broke into your house and—”
“No,” she said. “No, Dolly.”
“But, baby. If—”
“No,” she said again. “You’re too nice. You’ve done too much. I couldn’t let you do it.”
I swallowed, feeling like I ought to be disappointed. Because this was the first crack I’d ever had at the big dough, and I figured it’d just about be the last. But I reckon that I was actually pretty relieved. I was glad that it wasn’t going to happen.
“Well, all right,” I said. “I just thought that—”
“She’s got a gun. You might get hurt, or even killed,” she said.
And I was back in business again.
We’d come to the shopping center where I was supposed to let her out. I pulled in at the curb, and stopped.
“The old gal’s counting on me coming back to your house. Remember, honey? I told her I’d be back. So if I should drop around late some night and…”
I laid it on the line for her. Not the whole stunt, because I didn’t have it all figured out yet, but the main thing. What was going to have to happen to the old woman.
“You don’t have to mix into it yourself, baby. All you have to do is have the dough ready for me to grab and call the cops after I’ve left.”
“And then…” The shine came back into her eyes, the deadness went out of her face. “And we could go away together, then, Dolly? We could be together after that?”
“In a week or so, sure. Just as soon as things cool off a little.”
“Do it tonight, Dolly,” she said. “Kill her tonight.”
…Well, of course, doing it that night was out of the question. A deal like this, it was going to take some planning; there was Pete Hendrickson to be got ahold of and worked on. I told her we’d have to wait: probably I could swing it Monday. Meanwhile, she was to beat it on back to the house, and pretend like everything was hunky-dory.
“But what if she finds out I took that money, Dolly? If she finds out before Monday—”
“She won’t,” I said, making her believe it. Making myself believe it. “Beat it on home, now, and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow night. I’ll meet you right here around eight o’clock.”
She hung back, scared as hell to face the old dame, just wanting to hang on to me. But I sweet-talked her, kind of getting hard-boiled at the same time, and finally she took off.
I watched her until she rounded the corner. Then, I made a u-turn in the street and headed for home.
Now that it was all settled—if, of course, I could suck Pete in—I began to get cold feet. Or, maybe, I should say, I started to go cold on the deal. I wasn’t really scared; hell, there wasn’t anything to be scared about; and I sure wanted that little Mona and I sure wanted that hundred grand. But I just couldn’t see myself doing what I’d have to do.
“Why, you’re crazy, man!” I thought. “YOU’RE going to kill someone? YOU’RE going to kill a couple of people? Not you, fella. It just ain’t in you.”
I got about half way home, and then I jerked the wheel to the right and headed for town. I’d
hardly eaten anything for the last three-four days. Maybe that was what was making me so shaky and nervous. Maybe things would look different to me with a good meal under my belt.
I toured around the business section for a few minutes, trying to think of something I wanted to eat and some decent place to eat in. I finally wound up at the same old joint I usually ate in—a little combination bar and grill around the corner from the store.
I sat down in a booth, and the waitress shoved a menu in front of me. There wasn’t anything on it that sounded good, and anyway, one look at her and my stomach had turned flipflops. I don’t know why it is, by God, but I can tell you how it is. Every goddamned restaurant I go to, it’s always the same way…They’ll have some old bag on the payroll—I figure they keep her locked up in the mop closet until they see me coming. And they’ll doll her up in the dirtiest goddamned apron they can find and smear that crappy red polish all over her fingernails, and everything about her is smeary and sloppy and smelly. And she’s the dame that always waits on me.
I’m not kidding, brother. It’s that way wherever I go.
I told her to bring me a shot and a bottle of beer; I’d settle on something to eat later. But she was one of these salesmen, you know. She hung around, recommending “good things,” the day’s specials and so on; pointing ’em out with those goddamned red claws. So I put up with it just as long as I could, and then I gave her the old eye and told her off.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me, sister,” I said. “Maybe I better have the manager bring me that shot and the beer.”
“B-but—” She looked like I’d hit her in the face, and it was just about as red as if I had. “I’m sorry, sir. I was j-just trying to—”
“And I’m trying to get a drink,” I said. “Now, do I get it or not?”
I got it fast. But the next round I ordered, another girl brought it to me. Not that it made any difference, because she was just as bad as the first one; they all were; they always are. They may be okay up until then, but the minute I step in through the door of a place it’s let’s get sloppy, girls, here comes Dolly. The poor bastard ain’t got enough trouble, so let’s make him sick at his stomach.
I know how they do. They can’t kid me a damned bit.
Well, anyway. I finished the first set-up and started on the second. I was sitting there sipping beer, thinking and trying not to think, when a shadow fell across the table.
“Ah, Frank”—Staples’ lisping, oily voice. “So you are here, aren’t you?”
I gave a little jump, and he grinned and sat down across from me. I asked him what he meant by that so-I-was-here stuff.
“A little bet I had with myself. I—Oh, thank you, miss. A bowl of your delicious soup, if you please, and a tall glass of milk…As I was saying, Frank. I worked rather late at the store tonight, a special inventory, and afterwards I found myself in the mood for a pre-bedtime snack. But I do so hate to eat alone, you know; I’d almost rather do without. And just on the offchance that I might encounter some dear friend, I—Not you, of course. I had no idea that you would be eating out tonight…”
“This looks like I’m eating?” I said. “The wife had some girl friends in tonight so I got out of her way.”
“How thoughtful of you. And how thoughtless of her; to entertain on your first night at home…Are you and the little woman getting along all right, Frank? You haven’t quarreled?”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I said. “Now what’s the pitch on this bet you made with yourself?”
“Oh, yes.” He spooned soup into his pussy-cat mouth. “As I say, I was hoping to find someone to break bread with, and just on the offchance that you or one of the boys might be here, I glanced through the window…”
He grinned, waiting for me to feed him the straight line. I let him wait, taking another slug of beer, and his lips pulled down in a little pout.
“I couldn’t see you from the street, Frank. And yet I knew you were here. Aren’t you interested in knowing how?”
I was curious about it. But I shrugged and said it made me no difference.
His eyes glinted spitefully. “The atmosphere of the place, Frank. The look on the faces of those poor girls. Tell me, if you don’t like the food and the service here why don’t you go some place else?”
“What’s the use?” I said. “They’re all alike.”
“Oh? But—” He studied me puzzledly; then, his head moved in a nod, and he smiled in a way I didn’t understand. “Yes,” he said, “yes, I suppose they are all alike if…”
“Yeah?”
“Nothing. This is quite cozy, Frank; it’s always such a joy to talk to you…I trust you’re fully readjusted after your recent ordeal? You harbor no ill-will toward me?”
“A swell guy like you?” I said. “How could I?”
“I’m so glad. Incidentally, inasmuch as we are such good friends…”
“Fire away.”
“How in the name of heaven did you get so deeply in the hole? After all, the other collectors also had the rain to contend with, and they didn’t appropriate more than three hundred dollars in company funds.”
“Well,” I said. “Well, you see, Staples…”
“Yes, Frank?”
I couldn’t tell him. I wouldn’t have told him even if I could have found the right words, because it just wouldn’t have been smart. But I couldn’t find the right words.
“Are you fed up, Frank? Is that it? Feel like your best effort gains you no more than your worst, that existence itself has become pointless?”
Well, like I say, I couldn’t tell him; but he hadn’t missed it very far. I couldn’t get out and hit the old ball any more because I just didn’t give a damn any more. And I guess there’s nothing that can make a guy give a damn if he doesn’t feel like it.
“How about it, Frank?” His lisp was gone. “You may as well tell me now, if that’s the case.”
“Hell,” I said. “You talk like a man in a paper hat. What’s the difference anyway?”
He didn’t bother to answer me. Just waited. The difference was that if I couldn’t earn my dough, I’d probably go back to stealing it. And I might skip out with a wad before he could nail me.
“I don’t get you,” I said, stalling for time. “If you were worried, why didn’t you jump me about it this afternoon instead of—”
“I’m not the jumping kind, Frank. I always think things through, put all the various pieces together, before I act. Now, what happened to that money?”
A month or so later on I could have told him to go to hell; that, sure I was fed up with the damned stinking job and who wouldn’t be, and so what the hell about it? But it wasn’t a month or so later, and until it was—until everything had cooled off and it was safe to skip with Mona—I had to have a reason for staying in this crummy burg. I had to hang onto the job.
“…you understand, dear boy.” He was quizzing me again. “I’m not merely being nosy. If it’s simply something shady or unwise, if, for example, you spent it on a woman or took a little flyer on the ponies…”
I looked up, meeting his eyes at last. He’d rung the bell with that last bit. He’d shown me how to get off the hook, and he’d also opened the way for me to ask him some questions.
“You remember that sales letter I showed you a while back? From that oil company down in Oklahoma?”
“Letter?” He shrugged. “I think you’ve showed me at least a dozen. For a man with some pretensions to sophistication, you seem to have landed on a truly amazing number of sucker lists. But—” He broke off, staring at me. “Oh, no!” he said. “No, Frank! You didn’t send that outfit any money.”
“Yeah,” I looked sheepish. “I guess I did, Stape.”
“But I distinctly told you—”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, “but look at all the other things you told me. About the chances you missed when you were running a store down there years ago, and—”
“But my dear Frank! That was entirely different. I had
a chance to buy land—leases. The real thing, not merely wild promises on paper.”
“Well, I’ll know better next time,” I said. “You could have got in on the ground floor, huh, Stape?”
It was his favorite topic, the one thing he’d really talk to you about instead of jabbing you with the needle. Once you got him on the subject of oil and this town where he’d managed his first store, he was a different guy entirely.
“…you never saw anything like it, Frank. Nominally, it was the sorriest land in the world. Rocky, eroded, worn out. Then, the boom came and these poor farmers—people who actually hadn’t had enough to eat a few months before—were suddenly rich beyond their wildest dreams. Why, I personally know of one little eighty-acre plot that went for a million and a half dollars, and—”
I whistled, wonderingly, cutting in on him; sliding in one of the questions I wanted to ask. “I don’t suppose they all cashed in that heavy though, did they? I mean, some of ’em probably sold out too early or—”
“That’s right. That’s right, Frank. It just seemed too good to be true, you know. In a great many instances, the first lease hound that came along and shook forty or fifty or a hundred grand under a farmer’s nose—”
“Cash?” I whistled again. “You mean they actually swung that much cash at ’em?”
“Oh, yes, and even much larger sums. The psychological effect, you know; and then these people were poorly educated and inclined to be suspicious of banks. Cash they understood. A check—well, that to them was nothing more than a piece of paper.”
“What about the people like that, anyway?” I said. “I’ll bet a lot of them didn’t know what the hell to do with the money after they got it.”
“True. Oh, so true, Frank. You or I, now—if I were ever able to get my hands on any substantial sum…” He broke off, sighing, and dipped into the soup again. “Yes, Frank. It was an experience that might have permanently embittered a man of a less philosophical turn of mind. Here was poor little me, filled with appreciation for the finer things in life yet lacking the money to achieve them. And here were these loutish creatures with scads of money and no appreciation whatsoever. Why, in case after case, they wouldn’t even buy themselves the necessities of life. They simply went on living as they always had, and hoarded their tens of thousands.”