There is no reason, he said to himself, why I shouldn’t take them. In a sense, a very real sense, they are mine. Nobody will stop me, because they would recognize that I have a right to be there. The cop said that.
Starting up the engine, he drove along the street. The window lights of the store had been turned on and the interior was dark. The salesmen, the repairmen, Virginia and Chic and Herb had locked up and left.
He made a left turn and drove onto the parking lot beside the store. Parking at the loading dock in the rear, hidden from sight, he stepped out.
Then he walked around to the front and unlocked the front door.
The store was empty. Everyone had gone home.
He locked the door behind him and passed by the counter, through the rear door, to the stock room where the inventory of television sets and stoves and refrigerators, in their packing cartons, were stored. Table model TV sets, he decided, would be easiest to sell, especially in the towns through which he would be driving. He unlocked the back door to the outside loading dock, and then he picked out the television sets he wanted—those that had been stored behind the others, out of sight—and carried them, one by one, to the car. He filled up the trunk compartment and the backseat. The sets were heavy, and by the time he had finished, his side hurt like hell.
My goddamn side, he thought, gasping and trembling. But anyhow, the sets were in the car. At least seven hundred dollars worth, at dealer’s cost. If he got less than one hundred dollars a set he would wind up with five hundred dollars.
Going upstairs to the office, he pulled out the inventory cards that represented the sets he had taken. He stuck the cards in his pocket and returned to the main floor. Making sure that he had turned off all the lights, he locked the store up and got into the front seat of his car, behind the wheel.
The car, when he drove out of the parking lot, seemed sluggish from the weight of the sets. It’ll get lighter, he said to himself, by the time I get there.
Puttering About in a Small Land Page 32
