"We will. Don"t let the place run away."
Roy shifted from neutral into drive, and the Mercury moved off.
For some moments I stood motionless, watching the red tail lights climbing the hill towards Wentworth, then I started for the bungalow, but I might have known it wasn"t going to be that easy.
The bungalow door was locked. The lock wasn"t anything, but I had to go to the repair shed for a length of wire. I then had to fashion the wire into a pick, and it took me a few moments to get the lock turned.
I went into the sitting room and squatted down before the safe. Opening it was nothing. I had done it often enough, but this night, probably because I was nervous, I took longer than I had done before. Then just as I was opening the safe door, I heard the honk of a car horn.
A grey and yellow Cadillac stood by the pumps.
I spun the dial, making sure the door was locked again, then cursing to myself, I went out and fed gas into the car.
The driver, his wife and four awful kids wanted food. I fixed them sandwiches. They were in the lunch room for thirty minutes. As they drove away, a truck came in and the trucker wanted ham and eggs.
So it went on.
I expected this, and it didn"t worry me. This was routine. Around midnight, the traffic would stop. I would still have three hours in which to do the joba"it was enough.
At midnight the traffic did stop. I sat on the veranda, watching the long, winding road, lit by the moon for ten minutes before I got to my feet and started towards the bungalow again. Then I paused, and this time I felt a nudge of desperation as I saw the headlights of a fast approaching car.
I was pretty certain the car would stop, at least for gas. I walked to the pumps to save time.
As the car pulled up, I saw it was an old, dusty Buick. There were two men in it. The driver leaned out of the window, looking towards me.
He was a man around my own age, wearing a black slouch hat, a black shirt and a white tie. His suntanned face was thin and hatchet shaped. His small dark eyes were like bits of gla.s.s, and as expressionless.
His companion was fat, oily and swarthy with a straggly moustache and the narrow, olive black eyes of a Mexican. He was wearing a shabby, stained light grey suit and a Mexican hat, the cord under his fat chin.
There was something about these two I didn"t like. I had an instinctive feeling they were dangerous. This was the first time since I had been at Point of No Return that I was suddenly conscious that I was alone, and this was a lonely spot The Mexican was eyeing me over while the other man was looking around, his hard, bleak eyes probing the shadows.
"Shall I fill her up?" I said, unhooking the gas hose.
"Yeah: fill her up," the Mexican said.
The man in the white tie moved from the car, still looking around. As I switched on the pump and began to shoot gas into the car, I watched him. He took off his hat and began to fan himself with it. His thinning, black hair was wet with sweat.
"It sure is hot," I said. "One of the hottest nights I"ve known."
I was talking for the sake of talking. These two bothered me. I had an idea they might knock me on the head and rifle the till. Then a thought came into my mind that sent a chill through my blood. Suppose they found the safe in the bungalow . . . !
The man in the white tie had taken a pin from his coat lapel. He began to pick his teeth. I was aware now that he was staring at me: not at my face, but at the V opening of my open neck shirt.
"Is this your joint, bright boy?" he asked abruptly. He had a soft, drawling voice. "Have you a wife and kids here?"
It was the kind of question anyone could ask, but somehow, coming from him, there was something sinister about it.
"I"m just the hired hand," I said, watching the dial spin on the pump. "My boss and the other hired hand will be in at any minute now."
I figured it might be an idea to let them know I wasn"t going to be alone much longer.
He dug into his teeth with the ping, then sucked it and put it back into his lapel.
I switched off the pump, then picked the sponge out of the bucket and began to wipe over the windshield. I was watching these two the way you would watch a snake that has crawled into the bathroom while you are taking a tub.
"Let"s have something to eat, Sol," the man in the white tie said to the Mexican. He looked at me. "What have you got, bright boy?"
"At this hour, there"s only sandwiches," I said.
"It had better be better than sandwiches. Come on, shake the ants out of your pants. I"m hungry."
I sneaked a look at my wrist watch. The time was twenty minutes past midnight. Lola and Roy wouldn"t be back yet for at least two and a half hours. It looked as if I were stuck with these two.
I walked to the lunch room. The two men sauntered after me. They paused just inside the room, looking around.
"Anyone else here?" the man in the white tie asked.
He could easily find out for himself, so I said there was no one else here.
"Let"s eat: what have you got?"
"You can have fried chicken if you want to wait or there"s hamburgers and sandwiches."
Sol walked past me, around the counter, pushed open the kitchen door and looked inside. He came back, shaking his head at the man in the white tie.
Then I knew I was in for trouble.
The man in the white tie said, "This your only phone?" He tapped the telephone on the wall.
"Yes," I said. I kept my hands on my hips. I was very careful not to make any hurried movements.
He took hold of the telephone receiver and jerked the wire away from its moorings. As he did so, his snake"s eyes watched me.
"Get that chicken cooking. You watch him, Sol."
I went into the kitchen with Sol, breathing heavily, on my heels.
"What"s the idea?" I said as I started to heat up the chicken.
"Just relax, Pal," Sol said, sitting on the table. His fat, brown hand caressed his gun b.u.t.t. "Never mind with the questions."
There was a pause, then he said, "Do you like it here, pal? Don"t you find it lonely?"
"I"m used to it," I said, aware my lips felt stiff and my heart was thumping.
"You married?"
"No."
"How do you get on for a woman, then?"
"I manage."
The man in the white tie came in, carrying a plate of sandwiches he had taken from the gla.s.s case in the lunch room.
"Help yourself, Sol: these ain"t so lousy." He was speaking with his mouth crammed full of food. "Watch the bright boy and keep him amused. I"m going to take a look around."
Sol picked up two of the sandwiches and began to eat. The man in the white tie went out.
"Eddy"s a bright boy," Sol said to me. "You have to treat him gently. " He"s got a trigger itch, but treated right, he"s bright."
I didn"t say anything. There was nothing to say, but I was doing a lot of thinking.
This fat Mexican didn"t look so hard to take. If I could put him out of action, I was ready to take on Eddy: not the two of them, but one at the time didn"t seem too hard.
Sol said, "How much dough have you got in this dump?"
"Not much," I said. "We banked this afternoon."
"Yeah? That"s rough. We want dough: we want it bad." He scooped up two more sandwiches and began to cram them into his vast mouth. "We reckoned a dump like this would have plenty of dough stashed away somewhere."
"There"s a hundred bucks in the till," I said.
"There"d better be a d.a.m.n sight more than that, pal, or you might get a broken neck."
I put two plates on the table. I was breathing fast. If I was going to take this hunk of fat now was the time.
I picked up the frying pan, containing the chicken and the boiling fat.
"There"s the gas money," I went on as I walked over to the table. "Maybe there"s fifty bucks in the satchel, but not more."
He shifted his bulk off the table and stood watching me as, scoop in hand, I made ready to slide the chicken onto the plates.
"You"ll have to find more, pal," he said. "Ed isn"t the kind of guy you can stall."
With a flicking movement of my wrist I tossed the contents of the frying pan into his fat face.
The hot oil made his scream, and he staggered back. The chicken dripped down his coat: some of it lodged in his hat. His hand groped wildly for his gun as I slammed him across the face with the hot frying pan. Then as he reeled back, I jumped forward and belted him on the side of his jaw. He went down. Bending over him, I got his gun. I hit him on his forehead with the gun b.u.t.t as he tried to struggle up. He flopped down and his eyes rolled back.
I had his gun.
As I straightened I heard the lunch room door creak open. I jumped across the room and turned off the light.
I didn"t underestimate Eddy. He was a professional killer. But at least I had a gun.
chapter thirteen.
I.
"Sol ...?"
The man in the white tie"s voice was an alert whisper.
I took two silent steps sideways that brought me to the back door. I was no gunman. The heavy .45 felt awkward in my hand, but it gave me a lot of comfort.
The light went out in the lunch room. I heard a board creak.
"You there, Sol?"
I put my hand on the door handle and gently eased the door open. I would stand a better chance, I told myself, in the open.
I heard Sol stir and then groan. He must have had a head like concrete. I had reckoned he would have remained out of action long enough for me to take care of Eddy, but it looked as if I would have to work fast or I would have the two of them after me.
The back door was open now. Only a couple of days before, I had oiled the hinges and it opened silently.
I felt the hot air from the desert strike my face as I edged backwards, holding the .45 stiffly, pointing at the kitchen door.
The bang and flash of a gun and the deadly zip of a slug that almost brushed my hair sent my heart racing and brought sweat pouring down my face.
I jumped down the three steps and crouched in the darkness. That kind of shooting was a little too good.
I waited, listening, but hearing only the thud-thud-thud of my heart beats. I looked quickly up the white road, picked out by the moonlight, but there were no headlights coming. I was alone. If I was going to get out of this jam, I would have to rely on myself.
There was a big patch of moonlight flooding the gas pumps. Around the lunch room and the repair shed there was heavy darkness. The bungalow was also in darkness, but to get there, I would have to cross the patch of moonlight.
Moving step by step, keeping just by the wall of the lunch room, I edged backwards.
A soft voice called out of the darkness: "Hey, bright boy, drop the rod and come back here with your hands in the air. Come on! Drop the rod!"
That insinuating, confident voice nearly persuaded me to fire in its direction, but I just stopped in time. I realised the flash of my gun would pin point me. That was what he wanted. I would miss him, but I was pretty sure he wouldn"t miss me.
Crouching in the darkness, I remained motionless, straining my eyes in the direction of the voice, but I couldn"t see him.
"Come on, bright boy," the voice went on. "Drop the rod. You won"t get hurt if you come with your hands in the air. I just want your dough. Come on."
Was the voice closer? It seemed to me it was I was pretty scared. I knew if he caught sight of me, if he spotted where I was, he would kill me.