It was one of those high desert days when the thermometer says you should be in shirt-sleeves but the wind carries a dry chill and a thousand needles of sand. I’d drained my coffee and was considering taking off my suit coat when the girl came out of the bathroom. Billy would have blushed again. She’d combed her hair until it fell evenly to her shoulders, washed her face, and painted her lips dark red. She stared out the windows.
“That’s an awful lot of nothing out there,” she said.
“The map calls it the Devil’s Playground,” said Hank.
“He don’t need no special place,” she told the world.
“Know all about that, do you?” cracked Hank.
“Enough,” she answered. She nodded to the cooler behind the register. “You got any beer?”
“You got any I.D.?” Hank leered at her.
She pouted, gave him her back, and sat on a stool.
“The boys will want beer,” she told everyone and no one.
Out the front window I saw the wrecker turn off the highway, a red Dodge in tow. Billy backed the Dodge toward the empty bay. Two men jumped out the wrecker and headed to the cafe.
They walked in like they owned the place. The leader wore a Levi jacket over a white tee-shirt, rolled cuffed blue jeans, and black engineer boots with heels designed to make him feel six feet tall. He was a pretty boy, with dirty blond hair greased up and combed back, pale skin, a wild grin, and dancing blue eyes. His companion wore an old-fashioned canvas duster that covered him past his knees. His face implied an I.Q. well into double digits. He walked with a gimpy left leg.
“How we doin’, Nora?” asked pretty boy. He stayed by the door. His eyes sized up the room. The gimp walked to the register, asked Hank for a beer. Hank opened the cooler.
“So you’re the two heroes who sent a girl for help,” said the trucker, spinning round on his stool to face pretty boy.
“We figured nobody would tell her no.” Pretty boy smiled.
“Maybe she should ride with more man behind the wheel.”
The girl named Nora cautioned: “Jesse.”
“She’s fine with what she’s got,” said pretty boy Jesse.
At the register, the gimp laughed.
The trucker shook his head with disgust, turned back to his meal and newspaper.
“How we all doing today?” Jesse asked us. The beatniks ignored him. I shrugged.
The door to the garage bays opened and Billy came in.
“Mister,” he said to Jesse, “I checked your engine and—”
“I told you not to mess with it.” Jesse’s voice was cold.
“Hey, fixin’ cars is what I do. Did you know you got a couple holes punched in your radiator?”
“No,” said Jesse.
“How in the hell couldn’t you know?” continued Billy. The gimp leaned against the window, watched Hank and Anna behind the counter. “Almost looks like somebody shot your car.”
The trucker stood, dropped a couple of bills on the counter beside his newspaper. He kept his eyes off Nora two stools away and walked toward the front door where Jesse stood.
“Where you going?” said Jesse.
“Back on the road.” The trucker’s voice was strained. “Gotta make Texas by midnight.”
“You got plenty of time,” said Jesse. “Sit a spell. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
The trucker swung hard from his hip. His fist smashed into Jesse’s jaw and the small man crashed to the floor. The trucker leapt over Jesse’s legs and grabbed the door handle, all while I was getting to my feet. Jesse rolled, came up with a revolver. The gun cracked three times. Two red circles popped up on the trucker’s back and a crimson line creased the side of his head. He fell half in, half out the door.
The gimp pulled a police riot gun from under his duster—now I knew why he’d limped. The shotgun swung from Hank to us and back again.
Nora sat on her stool, clutching her purse.
“You!” Jesse screamed at Billy, who stared at the fallen trucker, mouth open, face pale. “Drag him back in here!”
When Billy didn’t move, Jesse slapped him. Billy pulled the trucker inside the cafe.
The beatnik woman screamed.
“Shut up!” yelled Jesse. To Hank: “Who’s out back?”
“Just . . . just the Mex cook!”
“Scooter!”
The gimp motioned Hank and Anna from behind the counter, then ran into the kitchen.
The beatnik woman screamed again.
“Shut her up!” yelled Jesse. Her man pressed his hands over her mouth.
“All of you! Over there!”
They joined me by the wall.
“Take him with you.”
Billy and I pulled the trucker into our group. His head wound wasn’t deep, but he was unconscious.
“Is he dead?” asked Jesse.
“No,” I said. “So far it’s just assault.”
Jesse laughed. Scooter herded a curly black-haired man out of the kitchen and over to us: Sal, the cook. His skin was olive. Sal wore a long-sleeved white shirt.
“Who else is in this town?” Jesse asked Hank.
The cafe owner stammered, pointed to one of the two houses across the highway.
“J-just a rummy. Louis. He’s probably in there.”
“Invite him over, Scooter.”
Scooter ran out.
“Well, now,” said Jesse, the revolver dangling from his hand, “I bet this isn’t what any of you expected.”
“What do you want?” cried the woman. “Our money—”
“Good idea. Nora, get their wallets.”
Billy stood at my side; when Nora got to us, she whispered: “Be careful!”
Jesse swung a chair around cowboy-style, sat down. Nora brought him the wallets. He kept one eye on us and used his free hand to pull out the green. My luck held, and he didn’t flip my billfold open and find the special deputy’s badge.
Scooter pushed a disheveled man through the front door and into our group: Louis, the sheepherder, reeking of whiskey.
“This isn’t exactly what we planned,” said Jesse.
“What plan?” snapped Nora.
“You ain’t got no complaints so far,” said Jesse. She frowned, stared at her shoes.
Scooter whined: “When we gonna get out of here?”
Jesse smiled. “We just got here.”
“There’ll be troopers.”
“Maybe there will, maybe there won’t.”
“They’ll see that one in the ditch, find his car.”
“These are lonesome roads,” said Jesse. “You never know who you’re going to find. Or when.”
The wind rattled the screen door.
“You hungry?” asked Jesse. Scooter nodded. Jesse wagged his pistol at the owner. “Fix us some burgers, man.”
“I ain’t the cook,” said Hank. He nodded to the curly-haired man. “Sal is.”
“You hire him ’cause he cooks good?” asked Jesse.
“I hired him ’cause he came along. He does the cooking’ and I do the bossin’.”
“Bet you’re a fair man, too, ain’t ya?” Jesse smiled.
“Damn right!” insisted Hank. For a moment, he forgot about the guns. “I ain’t like some. I work ’em all fair, colored or Mex, long as they know their place.”
“You’re a good man,” said Jesse. “Ain’t he, Sal?”
“I’ve known worse,” answered the cook. He had a thick accent, more guttural than most Mexicans.
“Maybe we should get him to give you a raise,” Jesse said.
“I just want to be left alone,” Sal replied.
“Can’t oblige you, amigo,” said Jesse. “Scooter, take Sal back to the kitchen, have him fry us some burgers. On your way, get the green in the till. And check around there real good.”
“We gotta get going,” whined Scooter, but he waved the shotgun at Sal.
“You be good now,” Jesse told the cook. “Follow orders.”
“I
know how to do that.” Sal walked toward the kitchen. Scooter called him up short while he cleaned out the till. Scooter smiled, reached beneath the counter, and came up with a Winchester .30-.30 lever-action saddle rifle.
“Expecting Indians?” said Jesse. Scooter laughed. Shotgun in one hand, Winchester in the other, he marched Sal back into the kitchen. “Any more iron around?”
The owner shook his head.
“Mister,” said Anna, the waitress, “I’m going to get the first-aid kit under the counter and tend to this man.”
“Knock yourself out, sister.”
The trucker lay on his back, pale, his chest slowly moving. I rolled him over, tore away his shirt. There should have been more blood coming out of the two holes in his back.
Jesse waved his .22 revolver. “He’s lucky I wasn’t packing more gun.
“Oh, he’s real lucky,” I said as Anna came over with the tin first-aid box.
“I’ll help,” said Nora. Jesse frowned as she left his side to stand next to me. “I’ve never seen a man shot before.”
“Sure you have,” I whispered. If Jesse heard me, he made no sign. Nora blushed. “How many have you guys gunned so far?”
“Hush,” she whispered back. “He’ll hear us.”
Anna and I stuck compress bandages over the holes in the trucker’s back, put some tape over the crease on his skull. Nora watched us for a few moments, then drifted to the kitchen.
“Give me a hand,” I said to the beatnik man. He wore a green corduroy jacket, khaki pants, a black turtleneck to match the one worn by his pale blonde woman friend. He had a beard, shaggy hair, and thin wrists. The trucker gurgled when we lifted him, and the beatnik woman began to cry. From the kitchen came the spatter and crackle of frying meat.
“Holy cow!” whispered Billy, color returning to his face.
We laid the trucker across tables Billy pushed together.
“Who are you people?” said the beatnik woman. “What do you want?”
“Lady,” said Jesse, “we are whoever we want to be.”
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered. “We’re just on our way to San Francisco—”
“Why?” Jesse spread his arms wide. “Because we can.”
“Mister,” said Billy, “you’re in real trouble with the police.”
Jesse laughed, held his forehead to keep from crying.
“That’s probably what it says in the newspapers,” I said, nodding to the folded journal the trucker had left beside his plate.
Those blue eyes raised up from Jesse’s hand; he walked backward to the counter and picked up the paper.
“So that’s what put a burr under his saddle!” Jesse read the paper to us: “’Police in five Western states are searching for three young murder suspects believed headed for California.’
“Ain’t everybody headed to California?” He grinned, continued: “ ‘Police in Riverton, Wyoming, say Jesse Edwards shot and killed Harley Benson, the stepfather of his girlfriend, Nora Benson, two days ago. Authorities say the girl may be a victim’ . . . Hah! . . . ‘a victim Edwards kidnapped. Before fleeing in a stolen car, Edwards stopped at the city jail, where his reform school roommate, Eugene Pandono, also known as Scooter, was in custody for burglary. Edwards shot and killed the jailer, and fled with Pandono. The stolen car was abandoned in Idaho, where police found the body of a salesman but not his car.’
“Hear that, folks? We’re famous! Hey, babe!” he called out to the kitchen. “We’re really going places now!”
“Where?” I asked.
“America, you know?” Jesse smiled. “It’s a big place.”
Sal and Nora walked out of the kitchen, carrying plates of hamburgers, french fries. Scooter came behind them carrying artillery. He left the Winchester on the counter, grabbed three beers from the cooler, and walked to the food table. They sent Sal to join us. Scooter and Jesse sat with their eyes our way.
“Hey, man,” whined Scooter. “Let’s go, huh?”
“It’s lunchtime!” Jesse nodded to Hank. “You got a jukebox in here?”
“There’s a radio by the coffee urn,” said waitress Anna.
“Well, sister,” Jesse told her, “let’s have some tunes.”
Anna slowly walked past the seated trio, behind the counter. She turned on the radio, got the news: Joe McCarthy was dead, the Teamsters were being thrown out of the AFL-CIO for being run by crooks, there was trouble in the Middle East.
“Did you hear England’s got the bomb?” Jesse asked us over the commercial for life insurance. He grinned. “It’s 1957: now everybody can die.”
Anna glanced at the rifle lying on the counter.
Without looking at her, Jesse said: “Forget it, sister.”
Anna turned the radio louder and came back to my side.
“You people spread out in a line so I can see all of you,” said Jesse, and we complied. “You can sit down.”
I pulled a chair next to Anna’s. If we whispered, I didn’t think they could hear us over the radio.
“You did the smart thing,” I told her.
“Somebody ought to shoot that bastard,” she said.
“Somebody will. Are there any more guns in here?”
She shook her head.
“How long you known these guys? Not them,” I added, ruling out the trio. “Hank. The sheepherder Louis. The Mexican cook.”
“Sal maybe ain’t Mex. Anybody who ain’t white, black, or Indian is Mex to Hank. What the hell do you care?”
“Just curious,” I lied.
“I just came to these parts five years ago,” she said. “I should’ve stayed in Butte.”
Billy sat next to me, his hand thrust in his overalls. “Hank’s been here since I was born. He should have kept a pistol under there. Maybe they’d’ve missed it. Maybe I . . . ”
“You stay smart, too,” I said. The trio were intent on their lunch. Through the side door to the garage I saw my car up on the hoist. “Where’s the switch to drop the hoist?”
“Mister, you got no tires on . . . ” My glare cut him short. “The operating switch is by the bay door. There’s a master hydraulic switch right around the corner there. You could flip it standing in here and it’d drop like a giant snowflake, but . . . ”
“I know where it is,” said Anna.
“It won’t make any sound coming down,” I said. “If either of you can, when they aren’t watching, drop my car.”
“Who are you, mister?” said Billy.
“Come on, Jesse!” Scooter, whining again. “Let’s grab one of their cars and go!”
The radio played “Seventy-Six Trombones.”
“Scooter,” said Jesse, leaning back in his chair, “you gotta think more. That’s why you always end up in trouble.”
I stood, and Scooter’s shotgun swung my way.
“Mind if we walk around a little back here?” I nodded to the trucker stretched out on the tables. “Check him out?”
“Move slow,” said Jesse, “or you’ll end up beside him.”
“Let me help,” said Nora. She brought her purse and met me beside the trucker. Her green eyes walked up and down my frame.
The trucker was cool and dry. His ribs were still and I felt no heartbeat. Nora watched me.
“He’s okay,” I told Jesse. “Out, but he’ll make it.”
And Nora knew I’d lied.
“You’re real smart,” she whispered to me. “I need a real smart man to get me out of this.”
“You got Jesse,” I told her.
“It isn’t like it looks,” she said. Bit her lip.
Sal the cook and the grizzled sheepherder were sitting at a table apart from the others. I sat down between them.
“Ain’t never seen nothin’ like this,” said Louis the sheepherder. His hands shook as he tried to roll a cigarette. Tobacco rained on the floor. Nora stared at me, then sat in a chair between her friends and the rest of us. “Ain’t never.”
“You sure?” I asked.
> “So how we going to get out of here?” whined Scooter.
“Saw a boy cut up in a bar in ’Bama,” Louis told me. He succeeded in filling the papers with tobacco. Used both hands to hold the papers to his lips, licked them shut. “Saw a bear rip up a herder on the mesa in forty-two, but I ain’t never seen no one shot.”
I settled in my chair.
“Scooter,” said Jesse, “you’re right. There’ll be cops, sooner or later. Probably roadblocks.” Jesse’s eyes roamed over us, over the cafe walls. He saw the Greyhound sign. Smiled.
“They’ll be stoppin’ every car,” Jesse nodded to the trucker, “every truck. We take one of their heaps, we’re no better off’n now. This piss ant place is a bus stop, ain’t it?”
Hank nodded.
“When’s the next bus?” said Jesse.
“The four-oh-two,” answered Hank. “Goes to Los Angeles.”
“Hey, baby!” Jesse called to Nora. She looked at him impassively. “Hollywood! You always wanted to be a star!”
Sal, the cook, sat to my left. His white shirt-sleeves were buttoned on his wrists, and his hands were crossed in his lap. I’ve smelled a lot of fear on a lot of men, in my own sweat, but nothing like that came off of Sal. He sat there like a curly-haired doll. Waiting without much wonder for whatever would happen.
“Sal’s a funny name for a Mexican,” I whispered.
“It’s good enough for Hank.” His accent was soft, and like no Mexican I ever heard. “Somebody must stop them.”
“Somebody will,” I told him. “It’s not always easy to know what to do.”
“That’s a lie,” he said. “A lie we tell ourselves so we don’t have to face the truth. We know what to do, but we pretend we don’t so we don’t have to do anything.”
“We’ll just get on that bus,” Jesse told his companions, “and ride it through the roadblocks and into the bigtime.”
“We ain’t got no tickets,” said Scooter seriously.
Jesse laughed. He lifted Scooter’s shotgun barrel.
“Sure we do,” he said.
“It’s only one-thirty,” said Scooter. “What are we going to do till then?”
“Till then?” Jesse smiled at us, like a cobra at a rabbit. “Till then, we’ll just have to keep ourselves amused.”
“What if you do the wrong thing?” I whispered to Sal.
“Then you carry it through life,” he said. “If you’re lucky, you die so people can forget you, get on with their lives.”
Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe Page 36
