He tapped me on the chest.
"You bet I want them, only I wasn"t expecting someone like you to be selling my food. I"ll be ready for you tomorrow. Lola and me will go into Wentworth and stock up." He grinned delightedly at me. "There"s still plenty of ham and eggs left. See what you can do with those."
He went back into the lunch room.
The truckers started to come in for gas now and the private car trade fell off. I didn"t have to sell the truckers food. They knew what they wanted.
Finally, around ten o"clock, the traffic quieted down, and after waiting around for twenty minutes and seeing no headlights coming out of the desert, I went into the lunch room.
There were a couple of truckers eating pie at the counter. Jenson was clearing up and stacking dishes. Someone had fed a coin in the jukebox which was blaring swing.
There was no sign of Lola, but I could hear her clattering dishes in the kitchen.
"Anything I can do?"
Jenson shook his head.
"It"s okay. We can manage. You get off to bed. It"s my shift tonight. Yours tomorrow." He jerked his head towards the kitchen door and grimaced. "She"s still sulking, but she"ll get over it. You start tomorrow at eight o"clock. Okay?"
"Sure," I said.
"Come in here for breakfast. And say, Jack, I hope you"re as pleased with the job as I am with you."
"I like it a lot," I said, "and I"m glad you"re pleased. Well, if I can"t do anything, I guess I"ll hit the hay."
I went across to the cabin, stripped off and got into bed. I was pretty tired, but my mind was too active for sleep. I kept thinking of Jenson"s wife, knowing I shouldn"t, but finding it impossible to keep her out of my mind.
The bed was right by the window, and from where I lay, I could look directly across the highway at the bungalow.
I was still trying to sleep an hour later when I saw a light go up in one of the bungalow windows.
I saw her standing in the middle of the room. She was smoking a cigarette, and for some moments she just stood there, letting smoke drift from between her lips. Then moving languidly, she stubbed out the cigarette, dropping the b.u.t.t on the floor. She pulled out a hairpin and the thick ma.s.s of red hair came tumbling down to her waist.
By now I was sitting up, leaning forward and staring; my heart thumping and my breathing was fast. She wasn"t more than thirty yards from me.
She sat on a chair in front of the dressing table mirror and began to brush her hair. She spent nearly five minutes stroking the red ma.s.s with the brush, then putting the brush down, she crossed over to the bed and turned down the cover.
She moved to the window and began to unfasten her overall. As the overall swung open, she reached out and pulled down the blind. With the light behind her, her shadow was sharp etched against the blind.
She took off the overall, letting it drop to the floor. Her naked silhouette against the blind turned my mouth dry.
Long after she had turned off the light, I still sat at the window, looking across at the bungalow.
It was only when a truck pulled up at the pumps and I saw Jenson come out of the bungalow that I lay down on the bed.
I didn"t sleep much that night.
chapter five.
I.
When I walked into the lunch room at six forty-five the next morning, Lola, clad only in a yellow halter and a pair of scarlet shorts, was scrubbing down the counter.
In that getup, she looked really something. The combination of her red hair, her green eyes and that creamy skin that goes with that colouring, plus her shape the halter and shorts scarcely concealed, had me staring.
She paused in her work to look sulkily at me, then continuedto scrub.
"Good morning, Mrs. Jenson," I said. "Can I do that for you?"
Again she paused, her green eyes hostile.
"When I want you to do anything for me I"ll tell you," she snapped.
"Why, sure," I said. "I didn"t mean any offence."
"If you want breakfast, get it in the kitchen."
She bent over the counter, using the scrub brush. I could see the deep hollow between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
She looked up.
"What are you staring at?"
"I didn"t know I was staring," I lied, and moved around the counter and into the kitchen.
Jenson was sitting at the table. There was a pile of money in bills and small change in front of him. By his side was a cup of coffee, a used plate and a knife and fork. He looked up, nodding at me.
"Come on in, Jack. Do you want ham and eggs?"
"Just coffee," I said, and went over to the pot standing on the hot plate.
"As soon as we"ve cleared up, Lola and me are going into Wentworth," he said. "We"ve had the best day for years here. Those fifteen dinners put us right in front. You keep that up, Jack, and I"ll be retiring. Just to make it interesting for you, I"m going to give you five per cent on all the restaurant checks. How"s that?"
"Why, that"s fine, Mr. Jenson. Thanks."
"When I"m in Wentworth, I"ll get you an overall to work in. Is there anything else you want?"
"I need some clothes, but I guess I"d better get them myself."
"Yeah. You can take the car to Wentworth tomorrow and fit yourself out. I"ll give you an advance on your restaurant cut. How about a hundred bucks?"
"That would do fine. Thanks a lot."
He pushed five twenties over to me.
"So tomorrow you go to Wentworth." He leaned back in his chair. "Do you think you could do something with that rotary cultivator? I bought it for sc.r.a.p, but I have an idea it would still work with a little persuasion."
*"I"ll take a look at it."
"We"ll be off in an hour, but we"ll be back by midday. Do you think you can handle it on your own?"
"I don"t see why not."
I washed out the coffee cup, then lighting a cigarette, I went into the lunch room.
Lola was putting pies in the gla.s.s case and arranging the labels on them. Her back was to me. I paused for a moment, feeling the blood move through me at the sight of her square shoulders, her narrow waist and her heavy hips. She must have known I was staring at her, but she didn"t look around.
I went out into the pale sunshine, and taking a broom, I swept up around the gas pumps.
A couple of trucks pulled in for gas. I tried to persuade the truckers to have breakfast but they were in a hurry.
When I was through cleaning up, I went into the shed and inspected the rotary cultivator. On a shelf I found a tin of rust remover and I got to work.
An hour later, Jenson came in.
"We"re off now, Jack. Sure you can manage?"
"You bet, Mr. Jenson."
"How"s it coming?"
"It wants working on, but it"ll be okay."
He rested his heavy hand on my shoulder as he looked at the machine.
"You get the rust off. I"ll fix it. See you around midday."
I moved with him to the shed door.
Lola was coming out of the bungalow. She looked smart in a green linen dress. It was a little tight across her chest. Her bust line was something that is now accepted as standard these days, but I wasn"t movie trained. Her bust line made me stare.
Jenson gave me a poke in the ribs.
"She looks a real lady, doesn"t she? Plenty of style, huh?"
"You"re right."
"Yeah, plenty of style. Well, I"ll be seeing you."
I watched them drive off in a cloud of dust.
I lit a cigarette and stood looking around. I told myself this was just the kind of place I would like to own. The thought dropped into my mind that Lola was the woman I would like to share it with. I went back to the shed and continued to work on the cultivator. I kept thinking of her in the halter and shorts, and the picture I had of her in my mind made concentration difficulty.
I had been working on the cultivator for an hour or so when a car pulled up right outside the shed in which I was working.
It was an old, dusty Chevrolet. A tall, lean man in his middle forties got out of the car, followed by a thin, yellow dog of no particular breed that moved close to the man"s heels, it"s big, bloodshot shot eyes mournful.
The man wore a pair of faded blue overalls, patched at the knees. Around his scraggy neck was a greasy red handkerchief knotted at his throat. At the back of his head he wore a high crowned straw hat, burned yellow by the sun.
His face, the colour of teak, was thin and fiddle shaped. He had a long thin nose and thin hips. His eyes, under greying bushy eyebrows, were steady and piercing.
There was something about him I didn"t like. He made me think of a cop. Those eyes were prying, suspicious and distrusting.
We looked at each other for a long moment, then I straighten up.
"Something I can do for you?" I said. I had to make a conscious effort to meet those prying eyes.
He leaned against the shed door, his thumbs hooked in the arm straps of his overalls. The dog sat by him, staring fixedly at me.
"Maybe," he said. "Maybe you can tell me who you are and what you are doing here. Maybe you can tell me where Carl Jensen is. Maybe you can tell me to mind my own business."
"Mr. Jenson is in Wentworth with Mrs. Jenson," I said. "I"m Jack Patmore, the new hand."
"Is that a fact?" He shifted his position. "You mean, Carl has hired you to help out?"
"That"s right."
"Well, well. I never thought he would do it." He shook his head. All the time his hard little eyes were running over me, taking in my stained, crumpled trousers, my dirty shirt and my scuffed shoes. "Never thought he"d take on help, specially when that wife of his is so set against it." He scratched the side of his face, continuing to shake his head. "I"m his brother-in-law. Ricks is the namea"George Ricks."
I guessed he wouldn"t be Lola"s brother. He must be the late Mrs. Jenson"s brother.
So I didn"t have to go on meeting those suspicious little eyes, I squatted down beside the rotary cultivator, my back to him.
"You said his wife went with him to Wentworth?" Ricks asked.
"Yes."
"So you"re alone here?"
"That"s right."
I heard him move forward, and he began to breathe down the back of my neck as I worked on the gearbox.
"I bet Carl bought that as sc.r.a.p. I bet he got it for a song. Wouldn"t surprise me to hear someone paid him to take it away."
I didn"t say anything. This man was beginning to get on my nerves.