"Carl"s a smart cookie all right," Ricks went on. "He"ll look at a lump of rusty iron and see profit in it whereas another guy would just see rusty iron. I bet he"ll get that cultivator working again and make a big profit out of it. Yeah, he"s smart when it comes to metal, but he"s plain dumb when it comes to people."
I made a grunting noise as I got the gear cogs out. I put them in a petrol bath.
"What do you think of that wife of his?"
I was glad I was bending over the machine so he couldn"t see my face. I wasn"t expecting that one. It jolted me.
"She"s all right," I said.
I reached for a screw driver and began to dismantle the clutch plates.
"All right? Is that what you think? I bet she doesn"t want you here. She doesn"t want anyone here. She doesn"t want me here: her husband"s brother-in-law. Never thought Carl would be such an old fool as to marry a tramp like her. She walked in here one day from nowhere and going nowhere. She"s smart all right. She saw her chance and grabbed it. All she had to do was to wave her s.e.x and her body in front of him, and the dope fell for it. You watch out. Don"t kid yourself you"ll stay here long because you won"t. She"ll talk Carl into getting rid of you. Know why?"
By now I had fixed a dumb look on my face. I turned to stare at him.
"I don"t know what you"re talking about," I said. "I"m just the hired help around here."
He grinned at me, showing big yellow teeth.
"That"s right, you told me." He settled himself against the shed door. "She"s scared someone will put the bite on Carl. She"s after his money. I know. I"ve watched her. You haven"t been around here long enough to get wise to her little tricks. She"s after his money: that"s all she thinks about He"s been salting money away for years. He has always been a careful man, never spends a dime, although he"s generous when he gets the chance, but with that tramp around, watching every move, he doesn"t get a chance. Before she came I was welcomed here. There was always a meal here for me, but not now. She sulks when I come. Do you know what happens? She locks her bedroom door. When you"re an old fool like Carl, getting on in years, every day counts, and it upset him if he can"t get into the sack with her. That"s how she put the screws on him. If he does anything she doesn"t like, the bedroom door gets locked. You watch out. You won"t last long. I know her. She"ll imagine you are after her money."
I sat back on my heels and examined the clutch plates. One of them was cracked. I put the plates in the petrol bath. Then I stood up and walked over to the work bench to pick up a rag to clean my hands.
He was watching me, but I kept my face dead pan and I could see my apparent indifference irritated him.
"Where have you come from, friend?" he asked abruptly, "Are you a stranger in these parts?"
"That"s right."
"How did you run into Carl?"
"I met him in Little Creek."
"You did? Looking for work, huh?"
"That"s it."
"Well . . ." He pushed himself away from the shed door. The dog had been sitting motionless: now it stood up. It looked expectantly at Ricks. "I mustn"t take up your time. I just looked in to borrow some tools. I"ve a little job up at my place that needs fixing. I always borrow what I want from Carl." He wandered around the shed, staring at the tool racks. "Now, let me see. What do I want?"
He took down two screw drivers and a hammer. He was reaching for a drill when I said, "I"m sorry, Mr. Ricks, but I can"t let you take those tools."
I saw him stiffen, then he looked sideways at me, his thin face expressionless.
"What was that, friend?"
"I haven"t Mr. Jenson"s permission to let tools go off this place," I said. "I"m responsible here while he"s away. If you"ll stick around until he comes back and he says it"s okay, then it"ll be okay, but no tools go out of here without his say-so."
He took the drill out of the rack and then reached for a hand saw.
"Just relax, friend. I"m his brother-in-law. You"re dead right. Anyone else but me shouldn"t borrow anything from herea"but me, that"s different."
I had had enough of this guy.
I walked over to him.
"I"m sorry, Mr. Ricks, no tools go out of here without Mr. Jenson"s say-so."
He eyed me. I could see a little red glint come into his eyes. The dog, as if sensing trouble, began to back slowly away.
"Now look, friend," Ricks said, "you don"t want to lose your job this soon, do you? If I tell Carl a"
"Go ahead and tell him," I said. "Those tools stay here. I"m sorry, but that"s the way it is. If you want them that badly you"ll have to wait until Mr. Jenson comes back and says you can have them."
"I see." There was sweat on his face now. He looked suddenly as mean as h.e.l.l. The dog slunk out of the shed and headed for the car. "So there are two of you here now, is that it? You wouldn"t also be after his moneya"like that tramp? Maybe she"s letting you into her sacka"is that it?"
I felt a rush of blood to my head. I caught hold of his overall and gave him a shake that nearly snapped his head of his shoulders, then I shoved him away from me.
"Get out of here!" I said. "Hear me? Beat it!"
He nearly fell over himself backing away. His face had gone yellow-green under his tan and his eyes popped out of his mean, thin face.
"I"ll fix you for this!" he quavered. "I"ll tell Carl ..."
"Get out!"
He turned and walked fast to his car. The dog was already in it Ricks got into the car, slammed the door and drove off in a cloud of dust.
I was worried. I didn"t know how Jenson would react if Ricks complained. At least I would get my story in first, but I wasn"t going to tell Jenson what Ricks had said about his wife. I was pretty sure Jenson wouldn"t like that pan of it, coming from me.
When they got back around midday and while I was helping Jenson unload the estate wagon, I told him Ricks had been here and had tried to borrow tools.
"I had to get a little rough with him, Mr. Jenson. He wouldn"t take no for an answer. I chased him out. If I did wrong, I"m sorry."
Jenson grinned at me.
"You did absolutely right. I should have warned you about him. That guy drives me crazy. I won"t let him take a thing off the place. One time I used to, but I never got anything back. He"s the biggest scrounger in the district. When my first wife was alive, he was never off the place. He came in for every meal, filled his car with my gas, borrowed my tools, borrowed money from my wife a"he drove me nuts. After I married Lola, she fixed him. I haven"t seen him now for a couple of months, but he"ll turn up again. Don"t let him have a thing if I"m not here."
I was relieved I hadn"t made a mistake so far as Jenson was concerned, but I had an idea I had made a mistake so far as Ricks was concerned.
I told myself I would have to watch out for him. He could mean trouble for me.
II.
Three weeks can seem a long time.
With the sun coming up behind the distant mountain, turning the desolate desert into a crimson wasteland, and as I lay in my bed, looking out of the window, I thought back on the three week I had now been at Point of No Return.
I now had a feeling of security. Farnworth, its stinking bunkhouse and its brutal guards seemed a remote nightmare: something that had never happened. I no longer felt a twinge of fear every time a car came out of the heat haze and pulled up beside the gas pumps. I was fairly certain now that I had become a lost man to the police, and if I continued to stay out here in this lonely place, I would remain safe.
Although Lola still didn"t speak to me unless she could help it she now seemed resigned to me. I still found her disturbing and sensually attractive, but that didn"t mean I even thought about doing anything about it.
I had too much respect and too much liking for Jenson. I had known from the start that he was my kind of people, but as the days went by, and we worked long hours together, I found he was something a lot more than that. He was a man you just had to like: a simple guy with a kindness in his heart that made you react to him unless you were a sonofab.i.t.c.h like George Ricks.
Jenson and I got along fine together. I soon found that although he was crazy about Lola, he yearned for male company. He liked to play gin rummy in the evenings while we waited for the late customer. He liked to talk about his past life and his ambitions, and from what I could see neither of these pastime interested Lola. I played a good game of gin and I was happy to let him talk.
I soon discovered he was shrewd and smart. He had a surprising talent for turning rusty sc.r.a.p into something he could sell at a profit. He had put the rotary cultivator in order and had sold it to a fanner for a hundred and fifty dollars.
He was like a kid with excitement when he had pulled off the sale.
"That"s a hundred and thirty bucks profit, Jack," he said, grinning from ear to ear. "That"s what I call a deal."
Then one night when we had finished a game of gin, and Lola bad gone to bed, and we two were sitting on the veranda of the lunch room, waiting for some trade, he suddenly got confidential.
"Know what I plan to do in a couple of years, Jack?" he said, stretching out his ma.s.sive legs and getting out his pipe. "I plan to go right around the world. It"ll take three years to do the job properly. When I"m ready, I"m going to sell this place, then me and Lola are going. Right the way around the world, missing nothing. First cla.s.s all the way: the best hotels, everything arranged and taken care of."
I stared at him.
"That"s going to cost a whale of a lot of money," I said.
"Yeah." He paused to light his pipe, then went on. "I"ve got the price all worked out. It"s going to hit me for sixty thousand bucks. On top of that there"s clothes, drinks and spending money. I reckon it"ll cost at least a hundred thousand. Well, I"ve got it, Jack. I"ve been saving for the past thirty years, and I"ve got it. I want to put by some capital to make a fresh start when I come back. I"ll have what I want in a couple of years, then away we go."
"You mean you"ve really got a hundred thousand dollars, Mr. Jenson?"
"Yes." He winked broadly at me. "I"ve got a system, Jack. I wouldn"t tell anyone this, but you and me are pals, and I know it won"t go any further. For thirty years, I"ve been making nice money out of sc.r.a.p. It"s just one of those things. I guess I have a talent for it. It has been cash right down the line, and with cash, the tax inspector doesn"t come into it. I"ve kept two sets of books for years. In one of them I"ve logged the gas sales and the lunch room sales: that"s for the tax inspector. In the other book I"ve kept a record of my sc.r.a.p sales, and that"s for me. That book tells me I"ve cleaned up one hundred thousand bucks."
"Out of sc.r.a.p?"
"Yeah. It wouldn"t be anything like that if the money had been taxed, but the way I"ve worked it, the tax man isn"t smelling a dime of it. It"s for Lola and me and the world trip."
I suddenly remembered what Ricks had said about Lola marrying Jenson for his money.
"Does she know about it?" I asked.
"Sure, she knows about it, but she doesn"t know what I plan to do with it. In another year, when I"m ready to quit, I"ll tell her. It"ll be a real surprise for her. Imagine! A trip around the world!"
On this particular morning, two days after this conversation and three weeks since I had come to Point of No Return, I lay in bed, brooding about Lola.
It was her turn for night shift, and from time to time during the night I had heard trucks pulling up and I had looked out of the window to see her in jeans and a shirt serving gas and talking to the truckers.
Jenson had wanted her to give up the night shift now I was there to help out, but she wouldn"t. She said she liked doing it. She knew most of the truckers, and they liked her. So Jenson reluctantly let her do one shift a week. He did two and I did four.
After one o"clock in the morning the traffic dropped away, and the one on nightshift could then turn in. It was seldom anyone came after that hour, and if they did, there was a night bell to ring.
I watched Lola as she sat in the basket chair on the veranda preparing string beans for the lunch trade. The time was just after six.
I saw the grocery truck coming. It came regularly every morning, bringing the groceries and any special orders from Wentworth. As the driver pulled up outside the lunch room, I tossed off the sheet and got out of bed.
The guy carried the big box of provisions up the steps and into the lunch room, and Lola followed him.
I stretched and yawned, then wandered into the bathroom, was feeling relaxed and pretty good. As I let the cold water from the shower run over me, I thought of Farnworth. I couldn"t help feeling complacent. I had certainly had some luck, but at the same time I had been pretty smart the way I had handled my escape.
But my luck was running out, although I didn"t know it right then. In that box of provisions the guy had just carried into the lunch room was something that was going to blow my complacent and my feeling of security sky high. One of Fate"s little jokes. This day was pay day.
With a roll of money in his big sweating hand, Jenson can lumbering into the shed where I was working after breakfast on the wreck of an outboard motor he had been paid to take away.
"How"s it coming, Jack?" he said, standing over me. "Think you can fix it?"
I looked up and grinned at him.
"Why, sure," I said. "I"ll get it to work, but I don"t guarantee how long it will last. This one"s a bad one: pretty nearly played out, but I"ll get it to work."
"Good boy." He wagged his head at me, "We"ll make a few bucks out of it, huh? I"ve got some dough for you. Forty for the joba"right?"
"Yeah."
"Then there"s the restaurant cut: a hundred and ten."
"As much as that?"
He laughed.
"Hear the man talk! You"ve sold more lunches and more dinners than we"ve ever sold before. You"re a knock out! Just as a sign of appreciation, I"m giving you another hundred for the sc.r.a.p you"ve worked on."
I stared at him.
"I didn"t expect that, Mr. Jenson. After all, this is my job."
"Now look, Jack, leave this to me. You"re doing all right. It was my lucky day when you came here. Since you"ve been here I"ve made a stack of dough. Take what I"m giving you and shut up."
"If that"s the way you feela"well, thanks." I took the bundle of bills he thrust at me. "Now you have me worried. I"m not spending the money I"m earning. I have it all in my cabin. With what you have just given me, I have over five hundred dollars. So what do I do with it? Would you give me an introduction to your bank?"
"My bank?" He laughed, shaking his head. "Who wants to put their money in a bank? Three years ago the Wentworth bank failed. All the guys who had put their savings in that bank went under. I don"t trust banks. I"ve never given any bank a cent of mine. I like it in cash. I like to know if anything happened to me, Lola could put her hands on my money without a lot of talk from the bank. Okay, you have five hundred dollars. I"ll take care of it for you. I have a safe. That"s where I keep my money. I"ll keep yours with mine. Then when you want to spend it, you come to me and you"ll get it in cash. Cash is more important than any bank talk. Never mind about putting the money out at interest. You can lose plenty of money if you"re after interest. One day it"s up, the next day it"s down, and if you want your money quick, you"re always out on the deal. You make a note of what you"ve got. I"ll keep it for you, then any time you want it, you can put your hands on it."
I stood up, gaping at him.
"You don"t keep your hundred thousand dollars in a safe here, do you?" I said.
"Why, of course I do. Why not? You don"t imagine I"d trust any bank around here to keep that amount of money for me? I"ve a safe that"s really gooda"the best. A Lawrence safe is the best money can buy. I don"t have to tell you that. You know safes. Isn"t that right? Isn"t a Lawrence safe the best money can buy?"
"Is that what you"ve got?"