I didn't know if she was lying or not.
"What's the idea then?"
"They could prove the gun shot him, couldn't they? It's safer to get rid of it."
That made sense, but I still wasn't sure if she had really got rid of it.
"And Chet, I've been thinking ..."
"Well, go on. What have you been thinking?''
"Now you have your boy friend with you, you can run this place on your own. I'm leaving."
"Do you think that is a good idea?"
"Of course. I've always want to leave. I've told you that over and over again. Now with Roy here it is possible."
"What will the sheriff think when he finds you gone?"
"You can tell him I've gone to join Carl, and you two are in charge."
"You're forgetting every police station has my description and photograph. Sorry, Lola, that cat won't jump."
Her eyes began to glitter.
"You're going to open that safe, Chet, and you are giving me the money! I'm leaving at the end of the week! Do you understand?"
"It won't work, Lola, for three very solid reasons. First, I have to keep out of sight. If you leave, it will appear that Roy is running this place on his own and the Sheriff could get nosy enough to check up. If he finds me here, I'm sunk. Secondly, Jenson is buried here and if the police ever dig him up, you're going to be here to take the rap. You shot him, and it's your pigeon. Thirdly, I'm not opening the safe and you're not getting the money, for the moment you get it, I'll be in trouble. There'll be nothing to stop you from telling the police I killed Jenson, and that's something I'll take damn good care you don't tell them."
I expected her to fly into a rage, but she didn't. Her face lost some of its colour. Her eyes went dark, but otherwise she kept calm.
"Sure about it, Chet?"
"Yes."
"Just so long as I know. I've waited four years now to get away from this hell hole. I've learned to be patient. I'll get out of it and when I do, you'll be sorry I didn't leave sooner."
"If we are going to warn each other, Lola, let me warn you too. Roy could open that safe, but don't get that idea in your head. If he opened the safe and saw what was in it, he'd take it. I'm telling you. Don't kid yourself he would fall for you. I wouldn't have had him here if I thought for one moment you could make an impression on him. I've known him all my life. Women bounce off him. You've tried to make an impression on him already. It didn't work, did it? The only thing in life that means anything to him is money. He would take the money and ditch you. You would never touch it. Don't kid yourself. If you want to lose that money, ask him to open the safe."
I left her staring at me with narrowed eyes. I joined Roy who was sweeping up around the gas pumps. He grinned at me.
"I thought I'd leave you two together. Have you kissed and made it up?"
"Not yet," I said. I couldn't help staring at him, wondering about him, asking myself if I could trust him not to make a fool of himself over Lola. Looking at his dark, cynical face, I tried to assure myself I could trust him. "She'll get over it."
"Treat them rough, Chet," he said. "No woman is worth a guy worrying himself. I found that out years ago. Relax. Don't look so worried. If she doesn't toe the line, there are plenty who will."
"Yeah, that's right. I have an idea, Roy, she's going to make a play at you to fix me. I just mention it. It's just an idea I have."
He laughed.
"That's funny. Okay, let her try. You know me, pal. She won't cut any ice with me. What's the idea then? Trying to make you jealous?"
I wondered if I should tell him about the safe, but I decided against it. If Roy knew there was all that money in the safe it would unsettle him. He would put pressure on me to try to persuade me to open the safe and that was something I wasn't going to do.
"That's the idea I guess."
He shook his head.
"Women!"
The next three days and nights must have been pretty lonely for Lola. As she continued to sulk with me, she found herself without anyone to talk to.
Roy and I kept together. We shared the night duty and we started a non-stop game of Gin. As soon as the traffic dropped off, we put a table on the veranda and started this game. We betted against each other on paper: no money passed between us, but we kept account.
Roy had a lot of luck, and he was a better player than I was.
It was on the fourth night that he said with a grin, "You're in the hole for five hundred bucks. You should quit before I ruin you."
"You don't have to worry about ruining me," I said, grinning at him. "What you've got to worry about is when you're going to get paid."
"Piker!" He shuffled the cards. "I could do with five hundred bucks. Next week, the races start. There's a horse that's going to walk it. If I could put five hundred bucks on that gee, I'd clear five thousand." He whistled. "That's the kind of money I'd like to put my hands on."
I thought of the hundred thousand in the safe.
"You wouldn't know what to do with it if you had it," I said. "Come on: concentrate, or you'll be owing me money soon."
He sat back in his chair.
"I'd know what to do with it," he said. "With five thousand bucks I could buy myself a partnership in a wire service. I know a guy who wants a little extra capital. With three times that money I could buy him out, then Boy! would I be in the dough!"
"You're nuts. Who ever heard of anyone making money out of a wire service?"
"I'm serious, Chet. If I could get some capital together, I would really be in the money. Okay, five thousand wouldn't get me far, but fifty thousand would."
I shifted uneasily in my chair.
"Forget it! How could you ever scrape up fifty thousand?"
"We could do it in six months, Chet." He leaned forward to stare at me. "I've got it all worked out. Now look, at the back of here there's a couple of acres of good, solid sand. You could land a hoverplane there. I know a guy in Mexico who would pay a hundred dollars a head to land Mexican wetbacks here. We could ferry them into Wentworth and Tropica Springs and lose them there. This is the idea place for a racket like that."
"I told you I was through with rackets, and I mean it. If you're not happy here, Roy, say so. I want you here, but if you want to start that kind of thing, you'll have to start it some place else."
Roy began to deal the cards.
"Well, okay," he said, but this time he didn't look at me. "I think you're passing up a good thing, but this is your show and not mine. I've got to get me some money before long. I've got to get some big money. I'd hate to break this up, but I'll have to in a while. I'll stick around for a bit, but I can't afford to stay here indefinitely. I've got to dream up a way to get some money."
"Don't be a fool, Roy," I said sharply. "You are heading for trouble the way you're thinking. Here, you are on your own, you are your own boss and can live damn well. This money itch is no good. If you had been to Farnworth ..."
"I know, but it so happens, Chet, I haven't been to Farnworth, and you wouldn't have been there if you had done what I had told you to instead of rushing down to the street."
"Oh, forget it!" I said. "Let's play if we're going to play."
We played a couple of hands and I won them both. Roy wasn't concentrating. I knew he was still thinking about this pipe dream of his. Suddenly he dropped his cards on the table.
"Let's chuck it," he said. "I'm tired. I guess I'll hit the sack."
It was my turn for night duty. This was the first time in five days that Roy wasn't sharing it with me.
"Sure, go ahead," I said.
He got up and stretched elaborately, yawning.
"See you in the morning. So long."
I watched him walk over to the cabin. I watched the light go up in the window. Across the way, Lola's light was still on,
I looked from one light to the other.
I had an idea that Roy was suddenly hostile to me.
That made two of them.
&
nbsp; CHAPTER TWELVE
I
But I needn't have worried.
The next morning, Roy was his old self again. I realised he had been disappointed that I had turned down his Mexican emigrant idea, but having slept on it, he seemed to have put it out of his mind.
We played Gin in the evening and we kidded each other about his winnings, and we talked about this and that, but we didn't talk about hoverplanes nor about quick, easy money.
I was relieved, not only because he was back in form, but also because Lola was slowly thawing out. She had spoken to me once or twice during the day: strictly business, but at least she was speaking.
Around ten o'clock that evening, she came out on the veranda and watch us playing Gin.
"Why not join us?" I said. "I'll get another chair."
"Cards are a waste of time," she said. "I'm going to bed. I have to be up early. I have a lot of stuff to get from Wentworth tomorrow. Which of you is coming to give me a hand?"
Up to now, she had always managed on her own when marketing in Wentworth. Her request startled me. While I was hesitating, Roy said, "If you don't want to go, Chet, I'd be glad to. I haven't been off the place since I've been here. There are things I want to buy. Okay?"
I felt a sudden stab of suspicion. I looked at him. He was lighting a cigarette and his face, lit by the flame of the lighter, was casual.
"Why, sure," I said. "You'll be back by lunch time. I can manage until then."
"I'll be leaving at eight," Lola said. "Good night," and she walked away towards the bungalow.
"I've got to get me some shirts and a pair of shoes," Roy said as he picked up his cards.
My suspicions died down. It was true he hadn't left Point of No Return since he had been here. It was reasonable that he should want some new clothes, but I wished he wasn't going with Lola. That bothered me. I was sure she would get to work on him. A twenty mile drive into Wentworth and back was too long for them to be alone together.
"Relax, pea brain," Roy said and reaching out, he slapped me on the knee. "I know what you're thinking—let her try. She'll cut no ice with me."
"I'm not worrying," I said.
But when I saw them go off together the following morning, I felt lonely and uneasy. To get my mind off them, I began to take down the engine of the Station wagon, but even working on a job I liked, I kept thinking and wondering and worrying.
A big truck, loaded with wooden crates, pulled up by the gas pumps. The driver was a thickset, elderly man. His blond hair was shot with white and his red, heavy face was shaded by a Stetson hat.
While I was filling the tanks, he climbed down from the cab, wiping his face with a grimy handkerchief.
"You're new around here, aren't you?" he said, looking curiously at me. "Where's Carl Jenson?"
I spotted he was a Swede, and that warned me he might be a friend of Jenson's. I gave him the story that Jenson was in Arizona.
For some reason this seemed to bother him. I saw his face tighten and his staring eyes harden.
"I've never known him to leave here before," he said. "I've been through here off and on for the past twenty years, and I've always found him here. Arizona, huh? Going to open a new gas station? Does that mean he isn't coming back?"
"He'll be back to clear up."
"Did he take his wife with him?"
"She's running this place while he's away. I'm just helping out."
"Are you a friend of hers?" he asked as I screwed on the caps to the tanks.
"I'm just hired to help out. What do you mean?"
"She's no good. You could have knocked me over with a puff of wind when I found her here, married to Jenson." He leaned up against the side of the truck and began to roll a cigarette. "I knew her in Carson City. That was five years ago. Then she was married to a guy named Frank Finney. He ran a repair station and a snack bar: she helped out. It wasn't his place: he just ran it. Know what happened to him?"
I was listening, tense, not missing a word.
"They found him dead in the snack bar one morning. There was a gun in his hand and his brains all over the floor. Her story was she heard the shot when she was upstairs. She came down and found him. There was a check on the till. They found over two thousand bucks missing. It looked like Finney had been robbing the till for months. They never found the money. The cops reckoned she had it, but they never proved it. There was one cop who even figured she shot Finney. They had been quarrelling for months, but they never proved that either. She left town soon after. Imagine my surprise to find her here, married to a good man like Jenson."
"First time I've heard of it," I said, managing to keep my face expressionless.
"It's not the kind of thing she would advertise," the trucker said. "Jenson is okay, isn't he? He really is in Arizona?"
I suddenly felt cold. This was dangerous. This Swede could be a lot more dangerous than Ricks.
"He's fine," I said, forcing myself to meet the pale, staring eyes. "I had a letter from him the other day. He's pretty pleased with this new filling station. Maybe the next time you come through you'll catch him."
He looked relieved.
"I'm damn glad to hear it. You know, for a moment, when you said he wasn't here, it jumped into my mind that—well, I thought maybe he was dead."
I was really sweating now.
"This story about her shooting her husband," I said, "there was no proof, was there?"
He suddenly looked embarrassed.
"No, but there was a lot of talk."
"As far as I can see, Mrs. Jenson makes Mr. Jenson very happy," I said. "He wouldn't like a story like that going around. I reckon he'd be pretty angry with you if he heard what you've been saying."
"You mean he's really happy with her?"
"That's what I'm telling you."
"Well . . . yeah, maybe, I have shot my mouth off. You forget it, will you? Don't mention it to Mr. Jenson."
"You forget it too." I took his money. "That kind of talk can cause an awful lot of mischief."
He got in the cab, slammed the door and drove off. I could see from the expression on his face I had thrown a scare into him.
He had certainly thrown a scare into me.
I stood staring after him.
Thoughts raced through my mind. So Lola had been married before. Her husband had died violently, and there had been money missing. I felt a tightening in my chest. Jenson had also died violently, and maybe, if I hadn't slammed the door of the safe shut, more money would have been missing.
I walked over to the lunch room veranda and sat down. I lit a cigarette, aware my hands were shaking.
My mind was now buzzing with alarm and suspicion.
According to the trucker, the Carson City police had thought Lola had not only taken the money, but she had murdered her husband.
Had she murdered Jenson?
I thought back on that scene that now seemed terribly near to me and startlingly vivid. In my mind, I say her come into the sitting-room. I could almost hear her quick, hard breathing. She had the gun in her hand. I heard again the fast, unreal dialogue. I remembered Jenson, red in the face with anger, getting to his feet
I saw Lola looking at me as I slammed the safe door shut, then I heard again the bang of the gun.
I had been convinced then that the sound of the safe door shutting had made her accidentally tighten her finger on the gun trigger. The gun had gone off, and Jenson had been killed.
Accidentally?
I threw the half smoked cigarette away and wiped my face with the back of my hand.
Accidentally was now the operative word.
She was suspected of murdering her first husband and money was missing. Had the shooting of Jenson been deliberate?
It had looked like an accident, but had it been, after all, murder? She could have pinned the murder on me. Then I had another idea that made my heart skip a beat.
The safe door had been open when she had come into the room with the gun. Suppose she had
planned first to shoot Jenson, and then me, and then take the money from the safe? Suppose this had been her plan? She could have hidden the money and then called the police. Her story would be that she and Jenson had caught me opening the safe. I had murdered Jenson. By some trick, she had got the gun from me and had shot me in self defence. I was an escapee from Farnworth: a man with a reputation. That fat sheriff from Wentworth might very easily have accepted such a story.
Come Easy, Go Easy Page 18
