The Long Night of Winchell Dear

by Robert James Waller

  “Marty, go in there and see if they got any decent coffee.” Ignoring Marty’s question, the driver squeezed the gasoline fill-lever harder, as if it would hurry things along, even though the pump was running at maximum speed. “Get us a couple of big cups if they do. I’ll take mine black with a little sugar.”

  The driver wondered what the minimum IQ was for being able to clean and load a Beretta 93R machine pistol. Firing one didn’t require any brains, that was for sure, or Marty would have been out of work a long time ago.

  Inside the Amigos store, Marty was complaining about the lack of fresh-brewed coffee. The teenage girl tending things chewed gum and leaned against the cigarette rack, staring at him, fingers on her right hand fiddling with three rings on the left.

  “Don’t you ever think some late night travelers might be needing a good cup of coffee?”

  “We’re about at closing time,” said the girl. “Never make fresh coffee after eleven o’clock. That’s the owner’s rule. Too much waste, he says.”

  “Well, that don’t make any sense, does it?” Marty was irritated by the coffee situation and almost as put out by the girl’s drawly way of speaking. Something about how the words sounded as they came out of her mouth bothered him. He wasn’t sure why, just bothered him, that’s all. The driver had said this whole region was about as far gone as a dumb-fuck desert, and Marty was starting to agree with that point of view.

  When the driver came in and pulled out his wallet, the girl stepped over and looked at a digital readout. “That’ll be seven ninety,” she said.

  “They don’t have no goddamn fresh coffee.” Marty’s voice showed clear and present irritation.

  “We don’t make fresh coffee after eleven,” the girl said, repeating the owner’s rule and handing a dime in change to the driver. “We’re closin’ in fifteen minutes.”

  “Don’t make any goddamn sense, that’s what.” Marty was studying key chains with steer heads on them.

  “Doesn’t have to make sense,” she said, tearing off the gas receipt and tossing it in a wastebasket. “It’s the rule, and I do what I’m told. Them steer-head key chains ain’t real silver, in case y’all’re wondering.”

  Marty snorted. “Think I’d think a key chain costing sixty-eight cents was real silver? Besides, I got a genuine leather one that came with my Corvette.” He glanced over at the driver and spoke in a middle border between whine and threat. “I think we ought to get the owner out of bed and see if we can’t change the rules and get us some fresh coffee, don’t you?”

  “That’s all right,” the driver said, giving the girl a sympathetic look. “We’ll take a coupla Cokes. Marty, grab us a cold pair of Cokes.”

  “That’ll be another dollar eighty for the Cokes,” drawled the attendant.

  Marty’s voice came from the back of the store, near the coolers. “Good idea. Coke’s got caffeine, just like coffee, don’t it?”

  Back outside the Amigos, Marty was complaining about how funny people talked in this goddamn-wherever place and how it goddamn made him nervous just listening to them. Bunch of goddamn hicks, that’s what. A cowboy was pumping gas into a dusty pickup and looking over the Continental, walking around it in his run-down boots.

  “Hey, what you think you’re doing?” Marty yelled.

  The cowboy looked up and smiled in a lazy fashion. “Just admiring y’all’s car. What’s something like this cost?”

  The driver didn’t know how much it cost; it wasn’t his car. Marty didn’t know, either.

  “Quite a bit…enough,” said the driver.

  The cowboy grinned. “Put a commode in there and it’d be a decent place to live. Must’ve cost more’n the house I rent over on Cholla Street.”

  “What you want to know for, anyway?” Marty was looking up at the cowboy, who was an easy six inches taller than the small man in the expensive suit.

  “No reason, just curious. Never be able to afford one anyway on cowboy wages.”

  Marty hitched up his trousers. “Well, then, there’s no point in asking, is there?”

  The cowboy’s smile was gone now, and he looked down at Marty. “Didn’t mean any harm. Sorry if I troubled y’all.”

  His drawl was deeper and more stretched than the attendant’s. He walked back to his pickup and put one boot on the running board while he minded the pump gauge running its total. At ten dollars he shut off the nozzle and hung it on the pump, watching the Lincoln move slowly out of the Amigos lot and make a right turn up San Jacinto.

  “Notice we didn’t have to pay before pumping the gas? Haven’t seen that for a long time,” the driver said. “Wait a minute, why in hell did I turn right out of the station? This ain’t the highway.”

  “Probably getting tired, maybe,” Marty said. “If they’d had fresh coffee back there, we’d be doing better. Want me to drive for a while?”

  The driver shook his head, thinking Marty behind the wheel was about the last thing he needed. “No, I’ll be fine. We can’t be more than two hours from that place called Clear Signal. Open one of those Cokes for me while I get us turned around…. Goddamn, this town’s got no side streets. Thought I could just drive around the block.”

  Marty handed him a Coke. “Shit, you’re right. Vacant lot over there, use that. No side streets, are there. No streetlights, either. What kind of a place don’t have any streetlights or side streets?”

  “This place,” the driver said as he swung left and made a U-turn, taking the Connie across part of a weedy lot. Just before all four wheels were back on the dirt of San Jacinto Street, there was a soft pop from the front of the car.

  “What was that?” Marty asked.

  “I hate to think what it was. Sounded like a tire. Give me that flashlight in the glove box.” The driver stopped and got out with the light, watching the right front tire deflate. He kicked the tire, then wished he hadn’t, and shined the light on his scuffed loafer. Marty opened his door and stepped over to where the driver was balanced on one foot and wiping off his shoe with a handkerchief.

  “What’s wrong?”

  The driver pointed at the tire with his flashlight. “That’s what’s wrong. Fucking flat.”

  “I ain’t changing it,” Marty said. “This is an expensive suit I got on. Wouldn’t expect me to change a tire with a bad back and wearing an expensive suit, would you?”

  “Well, Marty, my suit’s expensive, too. So are my shoes. Now, we can just stand around in the dark and talk about the price of our clothes, or we can get the goddamn tire changed and get on with what we got to do yet tonight.”

  The driver took off his jacket, folded it, and laid it gently on the front seat. He rolled up the sleeves on his blue-striped shirt and tucked his tie inside the shirt. Opening the truck, he looked over his shoulder. “Marty, hold the goddamn light so I can see what I’m doing.”

  “Little dusty in there, isn’t it?” Marty was peering in the trunk.

  “Dust is the middle name of this state.” The driver unfastened the spare and yanked it out, leaning it against the back bumper. “Jack and tire iron must be in this plastic package here.”

  Five minutes later, the right front of the Connie was jacked up and the driver was loosening wheel bolts.

  Marty bent over, hands on his thighs. “Look, at this angle you can see the boxes taped up there on the struts. And what are we going to do for a spare if this happens again, if we get another flat?”

  “I don’t know,” the driver grunted, fighting a tight wheel bolt with the iron. “Take a chance on getting through the night without one, get the flat fixed in the morning.”

  “Yeah, but what I want to know is, what if we have another flat in the meantime? Then what are we going to do?”

  “Jesus Christ, Marty, will you just shut up and keep the light steady!”

  Marty put one hand on the small of his back and arched forward, making a grunting sound of deep-buried pain as he did it. “Well, don’t get mad. I was only asking, you know. Nothing wrong with
asking, is there?”

  A pair of headlights came down the dirt street toward them. Marty squinted into the lights and could see the top-heavy profile common to police cars everywhere.

  “Oh, fuck, it’s the cops.”

  “What?” the driver said, standing up with the tire iron in his hand. He’d just taken off the flat and was getting ready to put on the spare. “Stay cool,” he said. “Looks like a local. Be pleasant and don’t give him any cause to be suspicious.”

  Marty was fidgeting as the police car swung around and came up behind the Lincoln. It was a while before the policeman got out, crackle of his radio floating over the empty street. The driver was working hard, getting the spare on and beginning to loosely refasten the wheel nuts.

  “Howdy, y’all,” the policeman said as he got out and walked toward the Lincoln. “Got a problem here?” He was young, maybe twenty-five, and wore a Stetson above his uniform. He also had a drawl like the cowboy’s, and that irritated Marty all over again.

  “Evening,” grunted the driver, spinning the nuts with his fingers, beginning to sweat. Three wheel nuts to go before he could let the Connie down and tighten them up. He repositioned himself so his body partially blocked the view of the metal boxes taped to the struts.

  Marty watched the officer approach them, saying nothing for a change.

  The driver had one more nut to put on. He dropped it in the dirt, swore, and then said quietly, “Keep the light on the wheel, Marty, and keep your mouth shut.”

  “Y’all’re a long way from home.” The policeman flipped on his own flashlight and moved the beam over the Connie, walking around the left side and shining the light on the seats and dash.

  “Yeah, we sure are, Officer. And got us a flat right here in your town.” The driver was looking for the missing nut. It had rolled under the car, and he scratched around, trying to find it.

  “Where y’all headed?”

  “Dallas. Got business there tomorrow.” The driver, having said that, suspected he’d made an error. His geography never had been very good, and he had only a general idea that Dallas was somewhere east.

  “What kind of business y’all in?”

  “Uh, business forms…paper supplies, that sort of thing.”

  “If y’all need to get to Dallas by tomorrow, how come y’all’re not up on I-10? Ol’ 90 here angles down to the river.”

  “Got confused, I guess. City boys aren’t too good at navigating big country. I was just telling my associate here that we’d better cut back north somewhere along the line.”

  The officer squatted, resting his arms on his knees, and looked at the driver’s work. His Mag-Lite beam bounced directly off the metal boxes, though he didn’t seem to notice them, and he canted his head as the police radio in his car chattered in the background. Marty had moved off to one side.

  “Nice car y’all got here. What year is it?”

  The driver didn’t know; Marty didn’t know.

  “Company car,” said the driver, still reaching under the Connie and feeling around in the dirt. “Pretty new model. Year or two old.”

  “Looks brand-new to me. Odometer says forty-three hundred miles is all she’s carrying.”

  Finally, the driver located the lost nut and gave it a fast spin onto a wheel bolt. He was sweating through the back of his shirt, hands soiled with grease and dirt, big shoulders hunched over, and powerful forearms working the jack handle, letting the Connie down. He didn’t like the cop’s attention to detail.

  “I need to ask y’all to show me the car registration,” the officer said, his light seeming to focus directly on the metal boxes. He tilted his head and moved the beam closer in on the boxes. “Wait a minute, hold on. What’s up under there, taped to the engine supports?”

  The driver thought he heard another tire pop, the sound being almost exactly like that. Then the policeman slumped forward and into him, Stetson scrunched up against the driver’s shoulder and Mag-Lite falling from the cop’s hand.

  “Jesus Christ!” The driver stood up, dangling the tire iron. “What the hell’s going on?” He picked up the Mag-Lite and pointed it down. A trickle of blood was coming from the back of the cop’s head.

  He turned the light on Marty, who was tucking into his waistband a short-barreled revolver with a noise suppressor attached to it.

  “Marty, for chrissake, what the fuck did you do?”

  “He saw the boxes. You noticed him seeing the boxes, didn’t you?” Marty was talking fast, almost babbling.

  “I could have tried talking my way out of it, you dumb shit. He didn’t have sufficient cause to do a search. Christ, now what the fuck do we do? You tell me that! And what in Jesus’ name are you doing with a piece? We’re supposed to have all the equipment in those boxes.”

  Marty didn’t say anything. A porch light came on across the street, and the driver could see the silhouette of someone peering through a front window. It all seemed to be falling apart in Corvalla, Texas.

  “We’ve got to get this son of a bitch out of sight, Marty. Quick, help me roll him in the backseat.”

  Marty stooped and took hold of the policeman’s ankles, being careful not to get his suit and shirt cuffs dirty, favoring his bad back. The driver swung open a rear door and grabbed the front of the policeman’s twill shirt, lifting him up and into the backseat.

  Marty buffed his hands together, then shook them. “Told you I didn’t like not having some hardware on me, didn’t I? Hey, he’s going to bleed all over in there, isn’t he? Blood’s hard to get off things. Spoil the leather upholstery, won’t it?”

  “Marty, shut up and do what I say before I lay you on top of that lawman. Pick up his cowboy hat and throw it in there with him. Then go back and shut off the lights and motor on the black-and-white.” The driver was operating the jack, letting the Connie down on four wheels. He spun the tire iron, tightening wheel nuts. Finished, he threw the flat tire and tools in the trunk and slammed it. The porch lights across the street were dark now.

  They were in the car and moving down San Jacinto toward Route 90 two blocks away. The driver’s shirtsleeves were still rolled up, forearms bulging with tension. He made the left turn onto 90 and lit a cigarette as they cleared the east edge of Corvalla. “There’s a pint of Wild Turkey in my bag. Get it out for me. I need a drink.”

  Marty turned around and leaned over the seat, unzipping a black leather suit bag. “Where is it? I can’t find it.”

  “Top left compartment, in with my shaving kit.”

  “I got it. Jesus, man, the cop’s bleeding all over the place now. I said that’d happen, didn’t I? What’re they going to say about this when we get back to the city?”

  The driver unscrewed the pint and took a long hit. He replaced the cap and put the bottle under the seat. “We’ll get rid of the body soon as we find a good place. Marty, you are one dumb fucker.”

  “Don’t talk that way to me. That cop was asking for it, way I see it. And I didn’t like the way he talked, anyway—what’s this ‘y’all’ shit? Goddamn hicks. And nobody, including you, calls me a dumb fucker, got it?” Marty’s voice had lost the kind of summer innocence it usually carried and had taken on a rime of dirt-gray frost.

  “Yeah, yeah, I hear you.” The driver started thinking about Marty’s instabilities and about the .32 S & W tucked in his partner’s waistband.

  He let the liquor take hold, loosen him, and he tried to lighten up, patching over what he’d said earlier. “Sorry. Just that we’ve got a mess on our hands, and I’m a little tight.”

  “Okay, then, long as you’re sorry for saying it. Look at that moon.” Marty was leaning forward and staring up through the windshield. “Ever see anything like it?”

  “No, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said the driver. He hit the accelerator hard, and the Connie bored on through a night that seemed to be getting longer the longer it ran.

  Back in 1938, Fain Bracquet fell under the heading and title of bandbox dandy. Talked like one,
dressed like one in his fine suits and flashy ties with an emerald stickpin, plus little black patent-leather boots intended for fine carpet and polished floors but surely not for high-desert explorations. Ordinarily, a professional hustler would have held to a lower profile, affecting the ordinary in speech and dress so as not to rouse attention or cause the eye to notice him, but Fain pretended to be a roving salesman for the candelilla wax factories near the border and played the glad-handing “Hi, y’all, and pleased to make your fine acquaintance” role to the hilt. It was an effective cover, apparently, for who could believe someone so finely turned out and congenial would ever think of cheating at cards?

  He hung around the Thunder Butte Store except for those occasions when he’d be gone for a month or two. Exactly where he went nobody ever knew for sure, but he’d always come back smiling and say things such as “Yessir, it was a profitable excursion…very profitable, I must admit.”

  The one liability in Fain Bracquet’s appearance was a bad left eye, which for some reason caused him to squint and crook his head when he was looking at you. That might have come off as sinister. Yet Fain made it part of his own brand of charm, and you almost felt sympathetic toward him. He took Winchell Dear into a back room of the store, crooked his head, and squinted at him.

  “Young Mr. Winchell, let’s first talk about the philosophy and aims of poker, a game whose chief and undiluted purpose is to victimize others. So listen to this and write it well in the spaces of your mind where you can pull it up when called on to do so: Cruelty and deceit are two of the prime weapons of a good poker player. And, being a man, you’ll find both of those qualities come more or less naturally if you just lie back and let ’em take over.” Fain Bracquet wiggled his eyebrows and grinned.

  “Got to play with endurance and pluck and composure, all the while maintaining an inner spirit of genteel savagery. When you’re at the poker table, forget about anything resembling humane conduct [he spoke the word humane contemptuously, as if it were one of the worst character traits a person could possess]. Forget about friendliness, generosity, compassion, and sportsmanship. Those have no place at a poker table and do violence to the purity of the game, contaminate it, as it were. No such thing as a friendly game of poker. Try to do that, and it’ll rot your skills, cause them to dull and wither. Follow?”