The Wheel is Fixed

by James M. Fox

  James M. Fox

  The Wheel Is Fixed

  Chapter One: TWO ON THE LAM

  HERE at the Cortez Hotel in El Paso I am registered as Donald Wells, but my real name is Richard Bailey, and I am a fugitive from justice.

  That is what they are calling us on page two of the first section of this morning’s Herald-Express. It took me a little while to find it, after I’d peeled off the Sunday comics and shaken out the weekly rotos and the local society junk and sixteen pages of classified ads. It is only a quarter column with a brief, inaccurate rehash of the messy part, and the headline says tersely: Hunt Couple in Palm Springs Swim Pool Massacre. It mentions that the FBI is after us; they found the car in Phoenix yesterday, which proves we crossed a State line and makes us eligible for five years in the Federal penitentiary right there. It describes Lorna as a motion picture actress, which she is not, and me as a salesman, which probably means they’ve found out about those three weeks last year when I toted a suitcase load of greeting cards around the streets of Hollywood.

  The Lagonda may have saved our skins, last Friday night. It was very fast, nothing but a long gray hood packed solid with power. They didn’t know we had it, and once we got under way we were across the Arizona line at Blythe before they could get the alarm out, maybe even before they missed us. Then there were three hundred miles of open desert, and the harsh white beam of our headlights stabbing the dark, and the rank smell of leather and hot motor oil, and the high-pitched whine of our tires on the asphalt, the growl of the exhaust, the nerve-wracking scream of a leaky muffler. It was something like trying to escape from a nightmare on the crest of a tornado.

  We covered those three hundred miles in less than four hours and made it to Phoenix just before midnight.

  She never said a word. She huddled away from me on her side of the seat, nursing her bandaged hands in her lap. The green reflection of the dashboard lights gave me an occasional glimpse of her face in the strange pale composure of extreme shock, eyes closed, lips tightly pressed and sometimes twitching gently, cheeks like pools of deep-blue shadow. She made the perfect picture of a beautiful young murderess riding off into purgatory, and I loved her more intensely than a man with a rope around his neck loves life itself.

  I don’t know how they missed us coming into the city. Perhaps they were looking for us on route 70, where I had taken the detour around Wickenburg, just east of Granite’s Pass, and arrived on route 80 from Yuma and Gila Bend. More likely they never expected us to get this far in the first place or, if we did, to dare drive straight into town. It was an idiotic risk to take, but it would have been just as dangerous to abandon the car on the highway and hitchhike in together. So we took it and came sliding down Main Street with our broken muffler sputtering away like a submachine gun, and nobody paying the slightest attention to us.

  I pulled up a block beyond the Greyhound Bus depot and backed into an alley and sneaked into the station from the rear to check on schedules. There was an east-bound bus leaving at 1:20 a.m. I bought a ticket to Kansas City, and the man told me I’d have to change at El Paso. Then I went back to the car and gave Lorna the ticket and told her to wait in the ladies’ room until a few minutes before bus time. I hadn’t noticed any cops in the station, but it was important, of course, that we should not be seen together, if we were going to have any kind of a chance at all.

  It was terribly awkward as well, with her hands in such bad shape she could hardly use them, bandaged finger tips more hopelessly conspicuous than the mark of Cain. Her own gloves would have killed her, if she’d brought any, but I had a pair of elderly yellow pigskins in my overcoat pocket that would just barely fit without pressure. They looked clumsy on her, and a little ridiculous in combination with the plain green butcher-linen suit she was wearing. The suit was a Maggy Rouff item that would have retailed at three figures. I didn’t think she’d be likely to run into anybody who might know about that. I fished a five-dollar lipstick from her green morocco shoulder-strap purse and used it on her, rather shakily, and helped her out of the car. I watched her walk stiffly down the block to the depot and push the door open with her elbow and disappear inside. If nobody happened to see the look in her eyes she’d pass for just another fairly attractive young woman on a quick emergency trip back home because of death in the family.

  The Lagonda’s fuel gauge said Empty. It had been saying that for the past twenty miles, but when I touched the starter there was still a whine of response left in the supercharger, enough to drag me three blocks across town and down the asphalt ramp into the basement garage of the Westward Ho. The night attendant, a brisk young Mexican in spotless white overalls, didn’t seem to be curious or particularly impressed. I told him I was catching a plane for L.A. and I’d be back on Monday to pick up the car. I didn’t expect to fool them, but it might gain us half an hour while they checked the airport.

  Then I ducked into an all-night coffeepot around the corner and choked down a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee. There were a couple of cabdrivers at the other end of the counter, and a well-dressed drunk knocking himself out on the nickel grabber, swearing under his breath at every lemon. He was a tall, long-nosed party in neatly pressed brown gabardine, with a real Panama on the back of his neck and a sweaty flush of exertion on his sallow jowls from slaving away on the handle bar. I could tell by the buzz-click of the wheels that the house had rollered off practically all but a couple of cherries, and the guy figured about as likely to win as I figured walking out of this jam on my feet, but we both kept on trying, anyway. I got the colored porter who was sweeping out the joint aside and passed him a twenty and told him to run over to the bus depot for a ticket to Amarillo, Texas. He didn’t ask questions; he just put his broom away and shuffled off. Before I’d finished my sandwich he was back with the ticket and a handful of change. I gave him four bits, paid the check, scowled at the drunk getting on my nerves, and made for the depot as fast as I could without actually running.

  The waiting-room was dimly lighted; the big clock above the exit to the stage platform said 12:43. Two sailors were sleeping on a bench, and a very young couple in faded jeans and starched calico were fussing over a baby in a brand new pink plastic traveling cradle. I had some trouble keeping my eyes off the Ladies door, and picked a seat that let me turn my back on it, as long as I leaned an arm on Lorna’s bag, the first I’d snatched from her closet and chucked a few of her things into on our way out. I knew we should have at least one piece of luggage, but this one wasn’t much use. It was too small and too expensive, a week-end case in polished alligator with gold-plated locks. Still, it would have to do, and at least it served better for carrying the money than Hitchcock’s flimsy and rather obvious black satchel.

  The minutes stumbled by like tired old men lugging boxes of dynamite. Around one o’clock a few more people drifted into the waiting-room from the street. Most of them were just the usual local night-owl types, come to kibitz the show. A grizzled old jockey in a greasy white coat opened up the lunch counter and laid out a small stack of magazines and a batch of early-morning News-Chronicles. I strolled over to buy one, making like casual; the headline was something about the war in China, but they had a smudged-up bulletin under stop press on the front page—Four Slain in Palm Springs Gang Battle. The bulletin made no reference to us at all, or to the money, either.

  At 1:06 the big gray diesel stage pulled into the station with a snort and a squeal of air brakes, and proceeded to spill a trickle of passengers. My hands squeezed into fists when the khaki uniform came swaggering in, but it was only the driver walking through to the locker room, looking for his relief man. Then I really went tense all over, because right on his heels were two burly customers in slacks and horse-blanket sports coats, reas
onable facsimiles of Sergeant Dettlinger and his partner. I swung away from them, dropping my newspaper and almost toppling Lorna’s suitcase off the bench, and they passed me less than three feet away, strolling on out through the exit into the street. They were talking crops, and their voices had a tired Arizona drawl, nothing like Dettlinger’s hard city accent.

  The dispatcher’s loud-speaker started crackling and announced that number twenty-one from Los Angeles was now loading for El Paso, Fort Worth, Dallas, Little Rock and Memphis, all aboard please. People drifted back to the platform; the two sailors and the couple with the baby were already on the bus. I caught myself watching the Ladies door and grinding my teeth. At last it opened slowly, and she slipped out across the room, looking very pale but carrying herself easily, almost proudly. A tall, rangy fellow in a Stetson and fancy Western boots held the door to the platform for her. He spoke to her, and she remembered to smile at him.

  I got up and followed her at a safe distance. She’d found a seat by herself, halfway down, when I boarded the stage. The relief driver glanced at my ticket from behind the wheel and waved me on impatiently. He did not even notice the bag. I picked a seat up front and shoved the bag out of sight under it, and let go of my breath when the air brakes hissed. We were rolling east again.

  It’s hard to imagine how I could have dozed off for almost an hour, under those conditions, but the next thing I knew my wrist watch showed 2:14, and something had happened to jar me back into spine-prickling apprehension. I couldn’t figure it out right away, because the bus was still droning along through the night at a normal fifty-five, and most of the passengers were sprawling asleep in their seats, with only two pin-point lights burning dimly overhead. Then my ears caught a snatch of Lorna’s whisper, harsh with subdued distress, and I saw she wasn’t alone any more; the tall Westerner now sat beside her, one long arm possessively lodged around her shoulders. His grin did not leave me the slightest doubt about the purpose of the conversation. I set my teeth, and called myself seventeen different kinds of idiot, and then I remembered she could not even use her hands. I stumbled down the stage’s swaying aisle and stood up facing them, keeping the snarl out of my voice with an effort.

  “This man annoying you, Miss?”

  She looked up at me with dark, frightened eyes that implored me to be careful. “No, thank you. I’m—it’s all right. Don’t bother.” The whisper was so low I had to read her trembling lips.

  He was staring at me in open derision, openly curious. “What’s riding you, pardner? Got yore brand on the little lady?” He did not move his arm or hide the insult in his lazy drawl.

  I told him no brand, and I couldn’t even ask him to step outside, but the driver could, if that was the way he wanted it. The baby in the plastic traveling cradle woke up and promptly started bawling. The two sailors in the next seat woke up in turn, took in the situation at a glance, and offered impartially sarcastic comment. Other voices joined in a surly chorus of protest; the driver took his foot off the gas and glared at us in his mirror. The lanky Westerner got up slowly, gave me a nasty smirk, and retired to his own seat. I went back to mine, not trusting myself to look at Lorna any more. I was cold all over, and shaking with nerves. I’d had a glimpse of what our life was going to be like, even if we did get away with it.

  The Stetson gallant got off the stage at Lordsburg, where we stopped for breakfast at 6 a.m. Most of the passengers stayed aboard, squinting at the hard, brassy ball of the sun rising above the rocky tableland. There was a crackle of waxed paper and a smell of food parcels and Thermos bottles behind me, and the baby set up another howl. I pretended to doze through it all and listened to Lorna’s cool, weary voice politely refusing to share the sailors’ supply of victuals. The driver came back, buttoning his pants. He hoisted himself behind the wheel again and leaned on his horn in a blast of warning to stragglers. Two very old Indians huddling in a doorway and a lone horseman on a buckskin pony watched us pull out into the highway.

  It was close to noon on Saturday when we came rumbling through the streets of El Paso and swung into the busy junction depot. The northbound stage for Amarillo, Tulsa, Kansas City, and Chicago was already drawn up on the adjoining platform. I strolled into the waiting room, carrying the fancy little alligator bag. There were no uniforms around, no loiterers hiding behind a newspaper. Lorna came in, pale and drawn from exhaustion, still wearing my old yellow gloves. By daylight they gave her just the right touch of dowdiness.

  I pushed the revolving door to the street for her and followed her out. There was no taxi stand, but I snagged a passing cab and put her in it with the bag. It was another deadly risk to take, but she didn’t look fit to walk a block, and it was the only way in which she could take luggage into the hotel without actually carrying it herself. I had already told her what to do when she got there.

  The cab went off with her, and I followed on a streetcar. The Cortez has a drugstore; I remembered the place from playing the Crystal Room, back in ’41—just about the last stretch I’d done with my own band before painting myself into a corner. There was a crowd for the early-luncheon rush hour, but I managed to get my hands on a glass of milk, a chocolate bar, and a couple of doughnuts, anything for some quick energy. When she’d had twenty minutes or so to get settled and dismiss the bellhop I ducked into a phone booth, called the hotel operator, and asked for Mrs. Mary Hendricks.

  The delay and the whispered consultation at the PBX nearly curled my hair. Something clicked on the line, and a male voice broke in, mentioned a number. I tried breathing and discovered it helped. The operator said she was sorry to keep me waiting, my party had only just checked in.

  “Rick?”

  “Yes. Are you all right?”

  “I think so. It’s 1264. I feel sort of weak.”

  “Call Room Service. You’ve got to eat something. I’ll be right up.”

  The registration clerk wore neatly tailored frontier pants and a hand-embroidered rancher’s shirt in yellow and black, but he looked just as bored as any other hotel man. He didn’t look as if he’d have noticed that she could hardly hold a pen, or that there was anything odd about those gloves. He said it was a dull week-end, lucky for me, dropping in without a reservation. Yes, he had some space higher up, a single on ten and a suite on twelve. He didn’t seem particularly surprised that a guest who needed a shave and his clothes pressed would want the suite. I told him my luggage was at the airport, all I’d come in for was a few hours’ sleep and to see a couple of people in town. He merely nodded and took my money and snapped his fingers at the bell captain.

  I drew 1259 and spent five minutes washing up and scraping the fur off my face with the razor and some brushless cream I’d bought at the drugstore. Then I crossed the corridor, scratched on 1264, and walked in. She was lying on the bed, as limp as a broken doll.

  “Did you order lunch?”

  “Not yet. My hands—”

  I took off the gloves, very carefully, and removed the bandages. Most of her fingers were in terrible shape, but it was the kind of thing where calling a doctor meant you might just as well phone the cops yourself. I broke out the rest of my drugstore supplies, Unguentine and fresh gauze and a bottle of aspirin.

  “Rick, I’m sorry—”

  “It’s okay. I’m not blaming you.”

  “I had no right to drag you into it.”

  “Listen, I was in it from the start. The whole thing was my fault. You can stop worrying about that part of it. What you need is food and a few hours’ sleep. We’ll cross the border tonight and get married in Mexico. From there on in it’ll be fairly plain sailing.”

  “I think we should go back.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  She winced and squeezed her eyelids tightly closed. They were like hollow bruises, smashed into her by a savage fist. I bit my lips, hard enough to taste blood, and slipped the gloves back over the new bandages.

  “We can make it,” I said cheerfully. “It’s just a question of money now,
and money’s the least of our troubles. Mexico City tomorrow, and Cuba by Monday. A change of clothes, a change of papers—everything we need, at a price. Then South America, Italy, the French Riviera, any place we like. They tell you it’s a small world, they don’t know what they’re talking about. Two thousand million people. I’m growing a mustache, and you can be a blonde and wear sloppy clothes. I’ll bet you’ve always wanted that.”

  “Have I?” She forced a smile. “South America—Rick, do you love me still? In spite of—everything?”

  “Could you possibly doubt it?”

  “Yes. Tell me again. I need to hear you tell me.”

  “I love you. Very much. Now listen, you’ve absolutely got to snap out of this and take care of yourself. I’ll run you a hot bath, and you call Room Service and have them send up something light and nourishing, like a chicken-liver omelet. And a quart of milk with a pony of rum for a chaser. I’ll help you undress and I’ll feed you, if necessary—you mustn’t use those hands except in an emergency. Then you’re off to bed while I go out to make a few inquiries.”

  “All right.” She did not look at me.

  There wasn’t any real point in making inquiries. I knew the local setup, and I’d visited Mexico before. You’re supposed to get a tourist card from the Consulate and pass customs inspection, but here in El Paso nobody bothers. Local traffic goes back and forth across four bridges over the Rio Grande into Juárez on the other side, and the Mexicans consider it all just one big, happy family, unless you’re going to try and drive up with a truckload of contraband. One reason is that the bulk of travelers for the interior goes by Laredo, five hundred miles to the east. But Juárez has an airfield of sorts, and a couple of rickety old DC3s serving Mexico City via Chihuahua and half a dozen whistlestops, no questions asked. This creates a pretty nice arrangement, in some cases. All I needed was to check the deal.

  Downstairs the air-conditioned lobby was cool, dark, and quiet with the comfortable seclusion of all good hotel parlors. Outside, the plaza lay baking and shimmering in the muggy afternoon heat and offered the harsh anonymity of the week-end crowds. At the first intersection a khaki-shirted cop grabbed my shoulder when I tried to make a dash for the Juárez streetcar. I hadn’t even noticed him, and my knees lurched under me; for one awful second I staggered against him before I managed to brace myself. He was as tall as I am, a husky young six-footer, his brick-red tan creased tight into a formidable scowl. He wore a shiny new silver badge with a high number, but the .45 on his carefully polished cartridge belt sagged professionally down the hips.