by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER TWO
"THANKS FOR THE CAR"
They held up another car with two men in it, and robbed them ofinsignificant trifles in what they believed to be a most ludicrousmanner. Afterward they enjoyed prolonged spasms of mirth, theircachinnations carrying far out over the flat lands disturbinginoffensive truck gardeners in their sleep. They cried "S-o-m-e time!"so often that the phrase struck even their fuddled brains as beingsilly.
They met another car--a large car with three women in the tonneau.These, evidently, were home-going theatre patrons who had indulgedthemselves in a supper afterwards. They were talking quietly as theycame unsuspectingly up to the big, shiny machine that was travelingslowly townward, and they gave it no more than a glance as theypassed.
Then came the explosion, that sounded surprisingly like a blowout. Thedriver stopped and got out to look for trouble, his companion at hisheels. They confronted six masked men, three of them displayingsix-shooters.
"Throw up your hands!" commanded a carefully disguised voice.
The driver obeyed--but his right hand came up with an automatic pistolin it. He fired straight into the bunch--foolishly, perhaps; at anyrate harmlessly, though they heard the bullet sing as it went by.Startled, one of the six fired back impulsively, and the other twofollowed his example. Had they tried to kill, in the night and drunkas they were, they probably would have failed; but firing at random,one bullet struck flesh. The man with the automatic flinched backward,reeled forward drunkenly and went down slowly, his companion graspingfutilely at his slipping body.
"Hey, you darn mutts, whatcha shootin' for? Hell of a josh, that is!"Jack shouted angrily and unguardedly. "Cut that out and pile in here!"
While the last man was clawing in through the door, Jack let in theclutch, slamming the gear-lever from low to high and skippingaltogether the intermediate. The big car leaped forward and Hen bithis tongue so that it bled. Behind them was confused shouting.
"Better go back and help--what? You hit one," Jack suggested over hisshoulder, slowing down as reason cooled his first hot impulse forflight.
"Go back _nothing!_ And let 'em get our number? Nothing doing!"
"Aw, that mark that was with him took it. I saw him give it theonce-over when he came back."
"He did not!" some one contradicted hotly. "He was too scared."
"Well, do we go back?" Jack was already edging the car to the right sothat he would have room for a turn.
"No! Step on 'er! Let 'er out, why don't yuh? Damn it, what yuhkillin' time for? Yuh trying to throw us down? Want that guy to call acop and pinch the outfit? Fine pal you are! We've got to beat it whilethe beatin's good. Go on, Jack--that's a good boy. Step on 'er!"
With all that tumult of urging, Jack went on, panic again growingwithin him as the car picked up speed. The faster he went the fasterhe wanted to go. His foot pressed harder and harder on theaccelerator. He glanced at the speedometer, saw it flirting with thefigures forty-five, and sent that number off the dial and forced fiftyand then sixty into sight. He rode the wheel, holding the great cartrue as a bullet down the black streak of boulevard that came slidingto meet him like a wide belt between whirring wheels.
The solemn voice that had croaked "S-o-m-e time!" so frequently,took to monotonous, recriminating speech. "No-body home!No-body home! Had to spill the beans, you simps! Nobody home a-tall!Had to shoot a man--got us all in wrong, you simps! Nobody home!" Hewaggled his head and flapped his hands in drunken self-righteousness,because he had not possessed a gun and therefore could not havecommitted the blunder of shooting the man.
"Aw, can that stuff! You're as much to blame as anybody," snapped theman nearest him, and gave the croaker a vicious jab with his elbow.
"Don't believe that guy got hep to our number! Didn't have time," anoptimist found courage to declare.
"What darn fool was it that shot first? Oughta be crowned for that!"
"Aw, the boob started it himself! He fired on us--and we were onlyjoshing!"
"He got his, all right!"
"Don't believe we killed him--sure, he was more scared than hurt," putin the optimist dubiously.
"No-body home," croaked the solemn one again, having recovered hisbreath.
They wrangled dismally and unconvincingly together, but no one putinto speech the fear that rode them hard. Fast as Jack drove, theykept urging him to "Step on 'er!" A bottle that had been circulatingintermittently among the crowd was drained and thrown out on theboulevard, there to menace the tires of other travelers. The keen windwhipped their hot faces and cleared a little their fuddled senses, nowthat the bottle was empty. A glimmer of caution prompted Jack to drivearound through Beverly Hills and into Sunset Boulevard, when he mighthave taken a shorter course home. It would be better, he thought, tocome into town from another direction, even if it took them longer toreach home. He was careful to keep on a quiet residence street when hepassed through. Hollywood, and he turned at Vermont Avenue and droveout into Griffith Park, swung into a crossroad and came out on a roadfrom Glendale. He made another turn or two, and finally slid into LosAngeles on the main road from Pasadena, well within the speed limitand with his heart beating a little nearer to normal.
"We've been to Mount Wilson, fellows. Don't forget that," he warnedhis passengers. "Stick to it. If they got our number back there we canbluff them into thinking they got it wrong. I'll let yuh out here andyou can walk home. Mum's the word--get that?"
He had taken only a passive part in the egregious folly of their play,but they climbed out now without protest, subdued and willing to ownhis leadership. Perhaps they realized suddenly that he was thesoberest man of the lot. Only once had he drunk on the way home, andthat sparingly, when the bottle had made the rounds. Like whippedschoolboys the six slunk off to their homes, and as they disappeared,Jack felt as though the full burden of the senseless crime had beendropped crushingly upon his shoulders.
He drove the big car quietly up the palm-shaded street to where hismother's wide-porched bungalow sprawled across two lots. He was sobernow, for the tragedy had shocked him into clear thinking. He shiveredwhen he turned in across the cement walk and slid slowly down thedriveway to the garage. He climbed stiffly out, rolled the big doorsshut, turned on the electric lights and then methodically switched offthe lights of the car. He looked at the clock imbedded in theinstrument board and saw that it lacked twenty minutes of three. Itwould soon be daylight. It seemed to him that there was a good deal tobe done before daylight.
Preoccupiedly he took a big handful of waste and began to polish thehood and fenders of the car. His mother would want to drive, and shealways made a fuss if he left any dust to dim its glossy splendor. Hewalked around behind and contemplated the number plate, wondering ifthe man who was said to be "hep" would remember that there were threeciphers together. He might see only two--being in a hurry and excited.He rubbed the plate thoughtfully, trying to guess just how thatnumber, 170007, would look to a stranger who was excited by being shotat.
No use doctoring the number now. If the man had it, he had it--and itwas easy enough to find the car that carried it. Easy enough, too, toprove who was in the car. Jack had named every one of the fellows whowere to make up the party. He had to, before his mother would let himtake the car. The names were just names to her--since she believedthat they were Christian young men!--but she had insisted upon knowingwho was going, and she would remember them. She had a memory likeglue. She would also give the names to any officer that asked. Jackknew that well enough. For, besides having a memory that would neverlet go, Mrs. Singleton Corey had a conscience that was inexorabletoward the faults of others. She would consider it her duty as aChristian woman and the president of the Purity League to hand thosesix young men over to the law. That she had been deceived as to theirmorals would add fire to her fervor.
Whether she would hand Jack over with them was a detail which did notgreatly concern her son. He believed she would do it, if thereby shemight win the plaudits of her world as a mother martyred
to her finesense of duty. Jack had lived with his mother for twenty-two years,and although he was very much afraid of her, he felt that he had noillusions concerning Mrs. Singleton Corey. He felt that she wouldsacrifice nearly everything to her greed for public approbation.Whether she would sacrifice her pride of family--twist it into a loftypride of duty--he did not know. There are queer psychological quirkswhich may not be foreseen by youth.
Looking back on the whole sickening affair while he sat on the runningboard and smoked a cigarette, Jack could not see how his mother couldconsistently avoid laying him on the altar of justice. He had driventhe party, and he had stopped the car for them to play their damnablejoke. The law would call him an accomplice, he supposed. His mothercould not save him, unless she pleaded well the excuse that he hadbeen led astray by evil companions. In lesser crises, Jack rememberedthat she had played successfully that card. She might try it now....
On the other hand, she might make a virtue of necessity and volunteerthe information that he had in the first place lied about theirdestination. That, he supposed, would imply a premeditated plan ofholding up automobiles. She might wash her hands of him altogether.He could see her doing that, too. He could, in fact, see Mrs.Singleton Corey doing several things that would work him ill andredound to her glory. What he could not see was a mother who wouldcling to him and cry over him and for him, and stick by him, justbecause she loved him.
"Aw, what's the use? It'll come out--it can't help it. The cops areout there smelling around now, I bet!"
He arose and worked over the car until it shone immaculately. Alifetime of continual nagging over little things, while the big thingshad been left to adjust themselves, had fixed upon Jack the habit ofattending first to his mother's whims. Mrs. Singleton Corey made it apoint to drive her own car. She liked the feeling of power that itgave her, and she loved the flattery of her friends. Therefore, even amurder problem must wait until her automobile was beautifully ready toback out of the garage into a critical world.
Jack gave a sigh of relief when he wiped his hands on the bunch ofwaste and tossed it into a tin can kept for that purpose. Time wasprecious to him just now. Any minute might bring the police. Jack didnot feel that he was to blame for what had happened, but he realizedkeenly that he was "in wrong" just the same, and he had no intentionof languishing heroically in jail if he could possibly keep out of it.
He hesitated, and finally he went to the house and let himself inthrough a window whose lock he had "doctored" months ago. His motherwould not let him have a key. She believed that being compelled toring the bell and awaken her put the needful check upon Jack's habits;that, in trailing downstairs in a silk kimono to receive him and hisexplanation of his lateness, she was fulfilling her duty as a mother.
Jack nearly always humored her in this delusion, and his explanationswere always convincing. But he was not prepared to make any just now.He crawled into the sun parlor, took off his shoes and slipped downthe hall and up the stairs to his room. There he rummaged through hiscloset and got out a khaki outing suit and hurried his person into it.In ten minutes he looked more like an overgrown boy scout thananything else. He took a cased trout rod and fly book, stuffed anextra shirt and all the socks he could find into his canvas creel,slung a pair of wading boots over his shoulder and tiptoed to thedoor.
There it occurred to him that it wouldn't be a bad idea to have somemoney. He went back to his discarded trousers, that lay in a heap onthe floor, and by diligent search he collected two silver dollars anda few nickels and dimes and quarters--enough to total two dollars andeighty-five cents. He looked at the meagre fund ruefully, rubbed hisfree hand over his hair and was reminded of something else. His hair,wavy and trained to lie back from his forehead, made him easilyremembered by strangers. He took his comb and dragged the whole heavymop down over his eyebrows, and parted it in the middle and plasteredit down upon his temples, trying to keep the wave out of it.
He looked different when he was through; and when he had pulled aprim, stiff-brimmed, leather-banded sombrero well down toward hisnose, he could find the heart to grin at his reflection.
The money problem returned to torment him. Of what use was thispreparation, unless he had some real money to use with it? He took offhis shoes again, and his hat; pulled on his bathrobe over the khakiand went out and across to his mother's room.
Mrs. Singleton Corey had another illusion among her collection ofillusions about herself. She believed that she was a very lightsleeper; that the slightest noise woke her, and that she would thenlie for hours wide-eyed. Indeed she frequently declared that she didher best mental work during "the sleepless hours of the night."
However that might be, she certainly was asleep when Jack pushed openher door. She lay on her back with her mouth half open, and she wassnoring rhythmically, emphatically--as one would hardly believe itpossible for a Mrs. Singleton Corey to snore. Jack looked at heroddly, but his eyes went immediately to her dresser and the purselying where she had carelessly laid it down on coming home from one ofher quests for impurity which she might purify.
She had a little more than forty-two dollars in her purse, and Jacktook all of it and went back to his room. There, he issued a check toher for that amount--unwittingly overdrawing his balance at the bankto do so--and wrote this note to his mother:
"Dear Mother:
"I borrowed some money from you, and I am leaving this check to coverthe amount. I am going on a fishing trip. Maybe to Mexico where dadmade his stake. Thanks for the car today.
"Your son, "Jack."
He took check and note to her room and placed them on her purse to thetune of her snoring, looked at her with a certain wistfulness for themothering he had never received from her, and went away.
He climbed out of the house as he had climbed in, and cut across lotsuntil he had reached a street some distance from his own neighborhood.Then keeping carefully in the shadows, he took the shortest route tothe S.P. depot. An early car clanged toward him, but he waited in adark spot until it had passed and then hurried on. He passed anall-night taxi stand in front of a hotel, but he did not disturb thesleepy drivers. So by walking every step of the way, he believed thathe had reached the depot unnoticed, just when daylight was upon himwith gray wreaths of fog.
By the depot clock it was five minutes to five. A train was beingcalled, and the sing-song chant informed him that it was bound for"Sa-anta Bar-bra--Sa-an Louis Oh bispo--Sa-linas--Sa-an 'Osay--Sa-anFransisco, and a-a-ll points north!"
Jack, with his rubber boots flapping on his back, took a run and aslide to the ticket window and bought a ticket for San Francisco,thinking rather feverishly of the various points north.
