by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER FOUR. HEAD SOUTH AND KEEP GOING
At a lunch wagon down near the water front, Bud stopped and bought two"hot dog" sandwiches and a mug of hot coffee boiled with milk in itand sweetened with three cubes of sugar. "O-oh, boy!" he ejaculatedgleefully when he set his teeth into biscuit and hot hamburger. Leaningback luxuriously in the big car, he ate and drank until he could eat anddrink no more. Then, with a bag of bananas on the seat beside him, hedrove on down to the mole, searching through the drizzle for the biggum sign which Foster had named. Just even with the coughing engine ofa waiting through train he saw it, and backed in against the curb,pointing the car's radiator toward the mainland. He had still half anhour to wait, and he buttoned on the curtains of the car, since a windfrom across the bay was sending the drizzle slantwise; moreover itoccurred to him that Foster would not object to the concealment whilethey were passing through Oakland. Then he listlessly ate a banana whilehe waited.
The hoarse siren of a ferryboat bellowed through the murk. Bud startedthe engine, throttled it down to his liking, and left it to warm up forthe flight. He ate another banana, thinking lazily that he wished heowned this car. For the first time in many a day his mind was not filledand boiling over with his trouble. Marie and all the bitterness she hadcome to mean to him receded into the misty background of his mind andhovered there, an indistinct memory of something painful in his life.
A street car slipped past, bobbing down the track like a duck sailingover ripples. A local train clanged down to the depot and stood janglingits bell while it disgorged passengers for the last boat to the Citywhose wall of stars was hidden behind the drizzle and the clinging fog.People came straggling down the sidewalk--not many, for few had businesswith the front end of the waiting trains. Bud pushed the throttle up alittle. His fingers dropped down to the gear lever, his foot snuggledagainst the clutch pedal.
Feet came hurrying. Two voices mumbled together. "Here he is," said one."That's the number I gave him." Bud felt some one step hurriedly uponthe running board. The tonneau door was yanked open. A man puffedaudibly behind him. "Yuh ready?" Foster's voice hissed in Bud's ear.
"R'aring to go." Bud heard the second man get in and shut the door, andhe jerked the gear lever into low. His foot came gently back with theclutch, and the car slid out and away.
Foster settled back on the cushions with a sigh. The other man wasfumbling the side curtains, swearing under his breath when his fingersbungled the fastenings.
"Everything all ready?" Foster's voice was strident with anxiety.
"Sure thing."
"Well, head south--any road you know best. And keep going, till I tellyou to stop. How's the oil and gas?"
"Full up. Gas enough for three hundred miles. Extra gallon of oil in thecar. What d'yah want--the speed limit through town?"
"Nah. Side streets, if you know any. They might get quick action andtelephone ahead."
"Leave it to me, brother."
Bud did not know for sure, never having been pursued; but it seemed tohim that a straightaway course down a main street where other cars werescudding homeward would be the safest route, because the simplest. Hedid not want any side streets in his, he decided--and maybe run into amess of street-improvement litter, and have to back trail around it.He held the car to a hurry-home pace that was well within the law, andworked into the direct route to Hayward. He sensed that either Foster orhis friend turned frequently to look back through the square celluloidwindow, but he did not pay much attention to them, for the streets weregreasy with wet, and not all drivers would equip with four skid chains.Keeping sharp lookout for skidding cars and unexpected pedestrians andstreet-car crossings and the like fully occupied Bud.
For all that, an occasional mutter came unheeded to his ears, the closedcurtains preserving articulate sounds like room walls.
"He's all right," he heard Foster whisper once. "Better than if he wasin on it." He did not know that Foster was speaking of him.
"--if he gets next," the friend mumbled.
"Ah, quit your worrying," Foster grunted. "The trick's turned; that'ssomething."
Bud was under the impression that they were talking about father-in-law,who had called Foster a careless hound; but whether they were or notconcerned him so little that his own thoughts never flagged in theirshuttle-weaving through his mind. The mechanics of handling the big carand getting the best speed out of her with the least effort and risk,the tearing away of the last link of his past happiness and his grief;the feeling that this night was the real parting between him and Marie,the real stepping out into the future; the future itself, blank beyondthe end of this trip, these were quite enough to hold Bud oblivious tothe conversation of strangers.
At dawn they neared a little village. Through this particular county theroad was unpaved and muddy, and the car was a sight to behold. The onlyclean spot was on the windshield, where Bud had reached around once ortwice with a handful of waste and cleaned a place to see through. It wasraining soddenly, steadily, as though it always had rained and alwayswould rain.
Bud turned his face slightly to one side. "How about stopping; I'll haveto feed her some oil--and it wouldn't hurt to fill the gas tank again.These heavy roads eat up a lot of extra power. What's her averagemileage on a gallon, Foster?"
"How the deuce should I know?" Foster snapped, just coming out of adoze.
"You ought to know, with your own car--and gas costing what it does."
"Oh!--ah--what was it you asked?" Foster yawned aloud. "I musta beenasleep."
"I guess you musta been, all right," Bud grunted. "Do you want breakfasthere, or don't you? I've got to stop for gas and oil; that's what I wasasking?"
The two consulted together, and finally told Bud to stop at the firstgarage and get his oil and gas. After that he could drive to a drugstore and buy a couple of thermos bottles, and after that he could go tothe nearest restaurant and get the bottles filled with black coffee, andhave lunch put up for six people. Foster and his friend would remain inthe car.
Bud did these things, revising the plan to the extent of eating his ownbreakfast at the counter in the restaurant while the lunch was beingprepared in the kitchen.
From where he sat he could look across at the muddy car standing beforea closed millinery-and-drygoods store. It surely did not look much likethe immaculate machine he had gloated over the evening before, but itwas a powerful, big brute of a car and looked its class in every line.Bud was proud to drive a car like that. The curtains were buttoned downtight, and he thought amusedly of the two men huddled inside, shiveringand hungry, yet refusing to come in and get warmed up with a decentbreakfast. Foster, he thought, must certainly be scared of his wife, ifhe daren't show himself in this little rube town. For the first time Budhad a vagrant suspicion that Foster had not told quite all there was totell about this trip. Bud wondered now if Foster was not going to meeta "Jane" somewhere in the South. That terrifying Mann Act would accountfor his caution much better than would the business deal of which Fosterhad hinted.
Of course, Bud told himself while the waiter refilled his coffee cup, itwas none of his business what Foster had up his sleeve. He wanted to getsomewhere quickly and quietly, and Bud was getting him there. That wasall he need to consider. Warmed and once more filled with a sense ofwell-being, Bud made himself a cigarette before the lunch was ready,and with his arms full of food he went out and across the street. Justbefore he reached the car one of the thermos bottles started to slidedown under his elbow. Bud attempted to grip it against his ribs, but thething had developed a slipperiness that threatened the whole load, so hestopped to rearrange his packages, and got an irritated sentence or twofrom his passengers.
"Giving yourself away like that! Why couldn't you fake up a mileage?Everybody lies or guesses about the gas--"
"Aw, what's the difference? The simp ain't next to anything. He thinks Iown it."
"Well, don't make the mistake of thinking he's a sheep. Once he--"
Bud suddenly remembered that he
wanted something more from therestaurant, and returned forth-with, slipping thermos bottle and all. Hebought two packages of chewing gum to while away the time when he couldnot handily smoke, and when he returned to the car he went mutteringdisapproving remarks about the rain and the mud and the bottles. Hepoked his head under the front curtain and into a glum silence. The twomen leaned back into the two corners of the wide seat, with their headsdrawn down into their coat collars and their hands thrust under therobe. Foster reached forward and took a thermos bottle, his partnerseized another.
"Say, you might get us a bottle of good whisky, too," said Foster,holding out a small gold piece between his gloved thumb and finger. "Bequick about it though--we want to be traveling. Lord, it's cold!"
Bud went into a saloon a few doors up the street, and was back presentlywith the bottle and the change. There being nothing more to detain themthere, he kicked some of the mud off his feet, scraped off the reston the edge of the running board and climbed in, fastening the curtainagainst the storm. "Lovely weather," he grunted sarcastically. "Straighton to Bakersfield, huh?"
There was a minute of silence save for the gurgling of liquid runningout of a bottle into an eager mouth. Bud laid an arm along the back ofhis seat and waited, his head turned toward them. "Where are you fellowsgoing, anyway?" he asked impatiently.
"Los An--" the stranger gurgled, still drinking.
"Yuma!" snapped Foster. "You shut up, Mert. I'm running this."
"Better--"
"Yuma. You hit the shortest trail for Yuma, Bud. I'm running this."
Foster seemed distinctly out of humor. He told Mert again to shut up,and Mert did so grumblingly, but somewhat diverted and consoled, Budfancied, by the sandwiches and coffee--and the whisky too, he guessed.For presently there was an odor from the uncorked bottle in the car.
Bud started and drove steadily on through the rain that never ceased.The big car warmed his heart with its perfect performance, its smooth,effortless speed, its ease of handling. He had driven too long and tooconstantly to tire easily, and he was almost tempted to settle down tosheer enjoyment in driving such a car. Last night he had enjoyed it, butlast night was not to-day.
He wished he had not overheard so much, or else had overheard more. Hewas inclined to regret his retreat from the acrimonious voices as beingpremature. Just why was he a simp, for instance? Was it because hethought Foster owned the car? Bud wondered whether father-in-law had notbought it, after all. Now that he began thinking from a different angle,he remembered that father-in-law had behaved very much like the proudpossessor of a new car. It really did not look plausible that he wouldcome out in the drizzle to see if Foster's car was safely locked in forthe night. There had been, too, a fussy fastidiousness in the way therobe had been folded and hung over the rail. No man would do that forsome other man's property, unless he was paid for it.
Wherefore, Bud finally concluded that Foster was not above helpinghimself to family property. On the whole, Bud did not greatly disapproveof that; he was too actively resentful of his own mother-in-law. He wasnot sure but he might have done something of the sort himself, if hismother-in-law had possessed a six-thousand-dollar car. Still, such acar generally means a good deal to the owner, and he did not wonder thatFoster was nervous about it.
But in the back of his mind there lurked a faint dissatisfaction withthis easy explanation. It occurred to him that if there was going tobe any trouble about the car, he might be involved beyond the point ofcomfort. After all, he did not know Foster, and he had no more reasonfor believing Foster's story than he had for doubting. For all he knew,it might not be a wife that Foster was so afraid of.
Bud was not stupid. He was merely concerned chiefly with his ownaffairs--a common enough failing, surely. But now that he had thoughthimself into a mental eddy where his own affairs offered no new impulsetoward emotion, he turned over and over in his mind the mysterious triphe was taking. It had come to seem just a little too mysterious to suithim, and when Bud Moore was not suited he was apt to do something aboutit.
What he did in this case was to stop in Bakersfield at a garage that hada combination drugstore and news-stand next door. He explained shortlyto his companions that he had to stop and buy a road map and that hewouldn't be long, and crawled out into the rain. At the open doorwayof the garage he turned and looked at the car. No, it certainly did notlook in the least like the machine he had driven down to the Oaklandmole--except, of course, that it was big and of the same make. It mighthave been empty, too, for all the sign it gave of being occupied. Fosterand Mert evidently had no intention whatever of showing themselves.
Bud went into the drugstore, remained there for five minutes perhaps,and emerged with a morning paper which he rolled up and put into hispocket. He had glanced through its feature news, and had read hastilyone front-page article that had nothing whatever to do with the war, buttold about the daring robbery of a jewelry store in San Francisco thenight before.
The safe, it seemed, had been opened almost in plain sight of the streetcrowds, with the lights full on in the store. A clever arrangement oftwo movable mirrors had served to shield the thief--or thieves. For nolonger than two or three minutes, it seemed, the lights had been off,and it was thought that the raiders had used the interval of darkness tomove the mirrors into position. Which went far toward proving that thecrime had been carefully planned in advance. Furthermore, the articlestated with some assurance that trusted employees were involved.
Bud also had glanced at the news items of less importance, and had beenstartled enough--yet not so much surprised as he would have been a fewhours earlier--to read, under the caption: DARING THIEF STEALS COSTLYCAR, to learn that a certain rich man of Oakland had lost his newautomobile. The address of the bereaved man had been given, and Bud'sheart had given a flop when he read it. The details of the theft had notbeen told, but Bud never noticed their absence. His memory supplied allthat for him with sufficient vividness.
He rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and with the paper stuffed carelesslyinto his pocket he went to the car, climbed in, and drove on tothe south, just as matter-of-factly as though he had not just thendiscovered that he, Bud Moore, had stolen a six-thousand-dollarautomobile the night before.