by Jim Thompson
“Come on, Doc,” he pleaded. “Come to Rudy, Doc. What the hell’s holding you up anyway?”
11
Flight is many things. Something clean and swift, like a bird skimming across the sky. Or something filthy and crawling; a series of crablike movements through figurative and literal slime, a process of creeping ahead, jumping sideways, running backward.
It is sleeping in fields and river bottoms. It is bellying for miles along an irrigation ditch. It is back roads, spur railroad lines, the tailgate of a wildcat truck, a stolen car and a dead couple in lovers’ lane. It is food pilfered from freight cars, garments taken from clotheslines; robbery and murder, sweat and blood. The complex made simple by the alchemy of necessity.
You cannot do what you must unaided. So throughout your struggling, your creeping and running, your thieving and killing, you are on the hunt for help. And if you live, you find it, sooner or later. Rudy Torrento found his sooner, in the Clintons. Doc found his later in a family of migratory farm workers; sharecroppers turned crop tramps.
There were nine of them, husband and wife and seven stair-step children—the youngest a toddling tot, the eldest a rawboned boy who was the scantling shadow of his father. They were camped alongside the muddy trickle of a creek. Two of the tires on their ancient truck were flat, and its battery stood on the ground. Their clothes were ragged but clean. When Doc emerged from the underbrush and approached them, trailed nervously by Carol, they drew together in a kind of phalanx; and the same look of wary phlegmatism was on every one of their suntanned faces.
Carol had no reason to be nervous. Doc knew people; and having been born among them, he knew this kind very well. Their existence was centered around existing. They had no hope of anything more, no comprehension that there might be anything more. In a sense they were an autonomous body, functioning within a society which was organized to grind them down. The law did not protect them; for them it was merely an instrument of harassment, a means of moving them on when it was against their interest to move, or detaining them where it was to their disadvantage to stay.
Doc knew them well. He knew how to talk to them.
Beyond a casual nod, he ignored the man’s wife and brood. They had no authority, and to imply any to them would have been discourteous. Drawing the man aside, he spoke to him circuitously; casually hunkering down on his heels, talking with the man’s own languid caution. Sometimes whole minutes passed in silence. And speaking, they seemed to discuss almost everything but the subject at hand.
Yet they understood each other, and they came to an agreement quite quickly. Doc gave the man some bills, not many and none of them large. For integrity cannot be bought, and they were simply men in need assisting one another. Then the man gave drawled instructions to his family.
“These here folks is friends,” he said. “They’ll be movin’ on with us. We don’t let on about it to no one, not ary peep or whistle.”
He sent the eldest boy and the second eldest into town for “new” secondhand tires, a battery and food. In the morning they headed westward, and lying prone in the rear of the truck, Doc and Carol heard the woman’s cracked voice raised in a spiritual and they smelled the smoke from the man’s nickel see-gar.
The seven children were squeezed into the truck bed with them, the bigger ones sitting with slumped shoulders to accommodate themselves to its low canvas cover. They were all around them, shielding them from view, hiding them as effectively as though they had been at the bottom of a well. But close as they were physically, they were still worlds apart.
Carol smiled at one of the girls, and received a flat stare in return. She started to pat the tot’s head, and barely jerked her hand back in time to avoid being bitten. The eldest boy protectively took charge of the child. “Wouldn’t do that no more, ma’am,” he advised Carol with chill politeness. “He don’t cotton none to strangers.”
The truck’s best speed was barely thirty miles an hour. Despite their early starts and late stops, they seldom made two hundred miles a day. Their food was monotonously unvaried, practically the same from one meal to the next. Salt pork and gravy, biscuits or mush, and chicory coffee for breakfast. For lunch, mush or biscuits and salt pork eaten cold while they rode. And for dinner, there was more biscuits, salt pork and gravy, with perhaps some sweetnin’ (sorghum) and a poke salad—greens boiled with pork into a greasy, tasteless mess.
Doc ate heartily of everything. Nauseated by the stuff, Carol ate no more than she had to to stay alive. She acquired a painful and embarrassing stomach complaint. Her small body ached constantly from the jouncing and bouncing of the truck. She became very bitter at Doc; the more so because she knew her predicament was her own fault, and because she dared not complain.
These people didn’t like her. They tolerated her only because she was Doc’s woman (his woman, for Pete’s sake!). And without Doc, she would be lost.
Whether the family knew who they were—the most wanted criminals in the country—is a moot point. But reading no newspapers, having no radio, living in their own closemouthed world of existing to exist, it is unlikely that they did. And probably they would have turned their back on the opportunity to inform themselves.
These folks was feedin’ them. These folks’ business was their own business.
Ask no questions an’ you’ll hear no lies.
Curiosity killed the cat.
Leave well enough be, an’ you’ll be well enough.
The old truck limped westward, carrying Doc and Carol far beyond the danger zone of roadblocks and police checks, and into the whilom safety of California. And there, after another day or so of travel, they parted company with the family.
Doc didn’t want them to know his and Carol’s destination, to get any closer to it than they already were. That would be asking for trouble, and asked-for trouble was usually gotten. Moreover, the family did not wish to go any farther south—into an area that was traditionally hostile to vagrants or anyone who might possibly become vagrant. And they hoped to have other fish to fry, or rather, apples to pick in the Pacific Northwest.
So there were monosyllabic farewells, a final exchange of money; then the family moved on, and Carol and Doc remained behind…Quite inappropriately in the City of Angels.
Doc was dressed in blue overalls and a jumper, and a striped railroad worker’s cap. He carried himself with a pronounced stoop; a pair of old-fashioned steel-rimmed glasses were perched on the end of his nose, and he peered over them nearsightedly as he paid for his ticket from a snap-top money pouch. A metal lunch bucket was tucked under one arm. Beneath his clothes—and Carol’s—was an outsize money belt.
Carol came into the railroad station several minutes after him. She also was stooped, cronelike of figure. She wore a long, shapeless black dress, and under the shadow of her head shawl her face was wizened and sunblack.
They boarded the train separately, Carol taking a rear seat, Doc entering the men’s lounge. Then, when their tickets had been collected and the train was well out of the yards, he came out and sat down at her side.
He opened the lunch bucket and took out a pint bottle of whiskey. He drank from it thirstily, wiped the neck with his sleeve, and extended it toward Carol.
She shook her head, her nose wrinkling distastefully. “Do you have to keep hitting that stuff?” she frowned.
“Keep hitting it?” He returned her frown. “That’s the first drink I’ve had in days.”
“Well, it’s one too many at a time like this! If you ask me, I…”
“But I didn’t.” He took another long drink, then returned the bottle to the lunch bucket. “Look,” he said reasonably. “What do you want to do anyway? Break up? Go it on your own? I’d like to know.”
“As if you didn’t already know! What the hell difference does it make what I want to do?”
“Well,” said Doc. “Well, then.”
Actually he did not want to be separated from her. Even if it had been practical, he would not have wanted
it. And despite anything she said or did, he knew that she felt the same way. They were still in love—as much as they had ever been. Strangely, nothing had changed that.
His eyes drifted shut. He wondered where the family of sharecroppers was by now, and subconsciously he wished that he was still with them. It hadn’t been at all bad, that long creeping journey across half of the United States. Nothing to do but ride and ride, with every day exactly like the one before. No worries, no decisions to make. Above all the freedom, in fact the necessity, not to talk.
He had never before realized the blessedness of silence—the freedom to be silent, rather, if one chose. He had never realized, somehow, that such blessedness might be his privilege. He was Doc McCoy, and Doc McCoy was born to the obligation of being one hell of a guy. Persuasive, impelling of personality; insidiously likable and good-humored and imperturbable. One of the nicest guys you’d ever meet, that was Doc McCoy. They broke the pattern when they made him. And, of course, Doc did like people and he liked to be liked. And he’d been well compensated for his efforts in that direction. Still—well, there you were. It had become an effort, something else that he hadn’t realized.
Maybe he was just very tired, he thought wearily. And very worried. Because exactly what they were going to do after they got to Golie’s he didn’t know.
“Doc,” Carol said. “What’s the next step, after we get to Golie’s?”
Doc grimaced. She can read my mind, he thought. “I’m thinking about it,” he said. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“You don’t know, do you? You haven’t any plan.”
“Now, that’s putting it a little strong. I’ll have to check around, and—” her scornful smile stopped him. “All right,” he said, “I don’t know.”
She waited, staring at him demandingly. He fumbled the lunch bucket open and took another drink. He gestured with it diffidently, then quickly recapped it and put it away.
“I—it would have been simple enough ordinarily,” he explained. “I mean, if we could have made it before they had the alarm out for us. Coming back from Mexico, you’re apt to get a pretty thorough going over. But going over, they hardly take a second look at you. You can just walk across the border, or drive across and…”
“All right! But that’s what we could have done!”
“Well—maybe we still can. There doesn’t seem to be much noise out here about us. Maybe…”
He broke off, unable to continue so palpable a lie. Perhaps there wasn’t any general search for them on the West Coast, but the border patrol would certainly have been alerted.
“We’ll see,” he mumbled. “I’ll have to look around. Maybe I can get a line on Ma Santis.”
“Ma Santis!” Carol let out a disgusted snort. “Just like that you’re going to get a line on Ma Santis, huh? You already told me you thought she was dead, and even if she wasn’t I’d like to know how you’re going to get a line on her or anyone else. You can’t make any inquiries. You can’t go wandering around and…”
“That’s right. I can’t,” Doc said curtly; and he got up and entered the rest room.
Seated on the long leather couch, he lighted a cigarette, looked wearily out into the moonlit night. He had always thought this was the most beautiful stretch of country in the world, this area of orange and avocado groves, of rolling black-green hills, of tile-roofed houses—all alike yet all different—stretching endlessly along the endless expanse of curving, white-sand beach. He had thought about retiring here some day and, though the idea was preposterous, he still thought about it. He could see himself and Carol on the patio of one of those incredibly gay houses. Barbecuing a steak perhaps, or sipping tall drinks while they stared out to sea. There would be a cool breeze blowing in, temperately cool and smelling of salt. And…
“Doc—” Carol murmured suddenly from the doorway.
He said, “Coming,” and rejoined her in the seat. And she patted his hand and gave him a lingering smile.
“You know something, Doc?” she whispered. “This will be our first night together. Our first night together and alone.”
“So it will!” Doc made his voice hearty. “It doesn’t seem possible, does it?”
“And I’m not going to let anything spoil it either. Nothing! We’ll just pretend like we don’t have a worry in the world tonight. Just push everything out of our minds and have ourselves a nice long hot bath, and something to eat and—and…”
She squeezed his hand. Almost fiercely.
“Sandy-Egg-O!” bawled the conductor. “Next stop is San Diego!”
12
The cabdriver accepted Doc’s tip with a grunt of surprise; he’d figured this pair for stiffs and maybe even no-pays. They were some kind of foreigners, he guessed, and they didn’t know their way around yet. And he hastened to place himself at their disposal.
“Maybe you folks would like to go somewhere for a bite to eat?” he suggested. “After you, uh, get cleaned up a little I mean.”
“Well—” Doc glanced at Carol. “I’m not sure just how long we’ll…”
“Or I could bring you something if you don’t want to go out. Sandwiches, chicken an’ French fries, maybe some Chinese or Mexican food. Anything you say, beer, booze, or baloney, and no service charge. Just my cab fare and waitin’ time.”
“Suppose you wait a moment,” Doc said. “I’ll have to see about a cabin.”
Fat little Golie was nervous, but then Golie almost always was; he had things to make him that way. So Doc couldn’t say just what it was that made him feel uneasy. He stalled over the selection of a cabin, finally choosing one at the far end of the court. But his effort to smell out the trouble he felt, to get at the source of his hunch, was unavailing.
Leaving the office, he gave the cabdriver his cabin number and a twenty; ordered two chicken dinners, cigarettes and a carton of coffee. The cabdriver saluted and sped away, and Doc and Carol went down the long single row of cabins to the last one.
He unlocked the door, switched on the light.
Carol yanked down the shade, pirouetted, and flopped down on the bed, kicking her legs high into the air. “Boy,” she breathed. “Does this ever feel good!” Then, wiggling her finger at him, “Come here you! Right this minute!”
Doc took a step toward her, then stopped short, frowning. “Listen! Do you hear anything?”
“Oh, now, Doc. Of course, I hear something. After all, we’re not the only people in the court.”
Doc stared at her absently, his brow furrowed with thought. Carol jumped up and put her arms around him. Leaned into him, smiling up into his face. This was to be their night together, didn’t he remember? Their first night in more than four years. So would he kindly stop acting foolish and jumpy, and…
“That’s it!” Doc’s eyes narrowed suddenly. “Golie’s family! There was none of ’em around, didn’t you notice? Not even that overstuffed wife of his, and she hasn’t been twenty feet away from the place since she came here. We’ve got to get out of here, Carol! Now!”
“G-get out? But—but…”
“He’s sent them away somewhere, don’t you see? He must have! And there’s only one reason why he would have.”
“But—” Carol looked at him incredulously. “But why? What could…”
“I don’t know! It doesn’t matter! It may be too late already, but…”
It was too late. There was a crunch of gravel outside. Then a polite knock on the door, and a woman’s soft voice.
“Mr. Kramer? Miz Kramer?”
Doc stiffened, whipped a gun from beneath the bib of his overalls. He gripped Carol’s arm, held it for a moment, then nodded to her.
“Yes?” Carol called. “Who is it, please?”
“The maid, ma’am. I brought you some towels.”
Doc glanced into the bathroom, and slowly shook his head. He pointed at Carol’s dress, mouthed a silent speech.
“Could you just leave them on the step, please? I’m undressed.”
Th
ere was silence for a long moment, a whispering so faint that it might have been anything but a whisper. But that was the tip-off. There was someone with this maid, if it was a maid. Someone who was giving her instructions.
Doc looked around swiftly. He squeezed Carol’s arm again and pointed toward the bathroom, and his lips formed the word “Window.” Carol shook her head violently and tried to hang onto him; then winced and nodded whitely as he gave her arm another painful squeeze.
He raised the window silently. He heard the maid say, “I can’t leave ’em outside, ma’am. Maybe your husband can come and get ’em.”
“Just a moment, please,” Carol called back. “He’s in the bathroom right now.”
Doc dropped through the window. He tiptoed along the rear of the house and around the side, and peered carefully around the corner.
Rudy! The gun in his hand jerked involuntarily. How in the hell!
He put it out of his mind; the wonderment, the sense of being unbearably put upon. Facts were facts, something to be accepted and dealt with, and the fact was that Rudy was here.
There was a woman with him—it was Fran Clinton—but she didn’t appear to be armed. Gun in hand, Rudy stood to one side of her, his head turned away from Doc.
He didn’t want to use the gun, of course. He could no more afford a racket than Doc and Carol could. His objective and Doc’s would be exactly the same—to settle their score silently and unseen in the privacy of the cabin.
Doc hefted his gun, raised the barrel level with his shoulder. He edged silently around the corner of the building.
Rudy first—with one skull-crushing blow from the gun. Then, before the woman could move or yell, a hard left hook with his free hand.
Eyes fixed on them, Doc slowly raised and lowered his foot. It came down on an up-cornered brick, one of several that had once formed the border of a flower bed. And he fell headlong.
