Suddenly Joe leaned forward, his eyes narrowing almost to slits as they do when he gets to thinking hard. His big hand came out, squeezing my leg above the knee painfully.
“Let’s go, Fenner! Move!”
I stepped on the gas, as much out of reflex to that painful grip as to his yell, spurting onto the road between a semi-trailer and a big truck, barely missing being squished, buffeted by the backlash of the wind from the semi and the blast of an outraged horn from the truck, swaying wildly a moment to get control, and finally settling down between the two monsters speeding along just under 70. I glanced over at Joe.
“Where we going?”
“Just stay behind that semi!” he said grimly.
“Right!” I said, mystified, and then suddenly had to touch my brakes as the trailer’s directional lights flashed on and the huge semi pulled to the left to pass a car.
“There!” Joe said, pointing. “That dark sedan! Let’s get them!”
I put on the flasher and siren and at the same time cut sharply in front of the sedan, forcing it to brake and spin onto the shoulder, twisting, almost into the guard-rail before it came to a shuddering stop, the truck shooting by us, its horn blaring, almost taking off my tail. I wondered what on earth had come over Joe, but he was already out of the car and had his gun on the men in the sedan before they could begin to recover from the shock of being stopped so suddenly. And when they did I was there on the other side of the car and the three were climbing down and lining up, leaning against the side of the sedan while Joe frisked them.
We found the money wedged under the back seat, 518,000 plus in an overnight bag, and we brought it in with our three prisoners. But I still couldn’t understand how Joe had spotted the car. Joe explained when we went out for a shot and a beer, which he properly felt we had earned.
“Man!” he said wonderingly. “Who goes 55 miles per hour on a highway today? You go 55 and you better have a ramp on top of your car so they can go over you, because otherwise they’ll go right through you!”
“True,” I said, still puzzled, “but—”
“The only guys going 55 are guys who don’t want to be stopped, can’t afford to be stopped, can’t take a chance of being stopped,” Joe said. “So when I see this car just ambling along, staying inside the limit—”
He shrugged. “And you notice the car was gray, not green or blue or black? And it was a Chevy? Witnesses!” he said with a grimace, and raised his glass.
68
Cattails
Marcia Muller
We came around the lake, Frances and I, heading toward the picnic ground. I was lugging the basket and when the going got rough, like where the path narrowed to a ledge of rock, I would set it down a minute before braving the uneven ground.
All the while I was seeing us as if we were in a movie — something I do more and more the older I get.
They come around the lake, an old couple of seventy, on a picnic. The woman strides ahead, still slender and active, her red scarf fluttering in the breeze. He follows, carrying the wicker basket, a stooped gray-headed man who moves hesitantly, as if he is a little afraid.
Drama, I thought. We’re more and more prone to it as the real thing fades from our lives. We make ourselves stars in scenarios that are at best boring. Ah, well, it’s a way to keep going. I have my little dramas; Frances has her spiritualism and seances. And, thinking of keeping going, I must or Frances will tell me I’m good for nothing, not even carrying the basket to the picnic ground.
Frances had already arrived there by the time I reached the meadow. I set the basket down once more and mopped my damp brow. She motioned impatiently to me and, with a muttered “Yes, dear,” I went on. It was the same place we always came for our annual outing. The same sunlight glinted coldly on the water; the same chill wind blew up from the shore; the same dampness saturated the ground.
January. A hell of a time for a picnic, even here in the hills of Northern California. I knew why she insisted on it. Who would know better than I? And yet I wondered — was there more to it than that? Was the fool woman trying to kill me with these damned outings?
She spread the plaid blanket on the ground in front of the log we always used as a backrest. I lowered myself onto it, groaning. Yes, the ground was damp as ever. Soon it would seep through the blanket and into my clothes. Frances unpacked the big wicker basket, portioning out food like she did at home. It was a nice basket, with real plates and silverware, all held in their own little niches. Frances had even packed cloth napkins — leave it to her not to forget. The basket was the kind you saw advertised nowadays in catalogs for rich people to buy, but it hadn’t cost us very much. I’d made the niches myself and outfitted it with what was left of our first set of dishes and flatware. That was back in the days when I liked doing handy projects, before...
“Charles, you’re not eating.” Frances thrust my plate into my hands.
Ham sandwich. On rye. With mustard. Pickle, garlic dill. Potato salad, Frances’s special recipe. The same as always.
“Don’t you think next year we could have something different?” I asked.
Frances looked at me with an expression close to hatred. “You know we can’t.”
“Guess not.” I bit into the sandwich.
Frances opened a beer for me. Bud. I’m not supposed to drink, not since the last seizure, and I’ve been good, damned good. But on these yearly picnics it’s different. It’s got to be.
Frances poured herself some wine. We ate in silence, staring at the cattails along the shore of the lake.
When we finished what was on our plates, Frances opened another beer for me and took out the birthday cake. It was chocolate with darker chocolate icing. I knew that without looking.
“He would have been twenty-nine,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Twenty-nine. A man.”
“Yes,” I said again, with mental reservations.
“Poor Richie. He was such a beautiful baby.”
I was silent, watching the cattails.
“Do you remember, Charles? What a beautiful baby he was?”
“Yes.”
That had been in Detroit. Back when the auto industry was going great guns and jobs on the assembly line were a dime a dozen. We’d had a red-brick house in a surburb called Royal Oak. And a green Ford — that’s where I’d worked, Ford’s, the River Rouge plant — and a yard with big maple trees. And, unexpectedly, we’d had Richie.
“He was such a good baby, too. He never cried.”
“No, he didn’t.”
Richie never cried. He’d been unusually silent, watching us. And I’d started to drink more. I’d come home and see them, mother and the change-of-life baby she’d never wanted, beneath the big maple trees. And I’d go to the kitchen for a beer.
I lost the job at Ford’s. Our furniture was sold. The house went on the market. And then we headed west in the green car. To Chicago.
Now Frances handed me another beer.
“I shouldn’t.” I wasn’t used to drinking anymore and I already felt drunk.
“Drink it.”
I shrugged and tilted the can.
Chicago had been miserable. There we’d lived in a railroad flat in an old dark brick building. It was always cold in the flat, and in the Polish butcher shop where I clerked. Frances started talking about going to work, but I wouldn’t let her. Richie needed her. Needed watching.
The beer was making me feel sleepy.
In Chicago, the snow had drifted and covered the front stoop. I would come home in the dark, carrying meat that the butcher shop was going to throw out — chicken backs and nearly spoiled pork and sometimes a soupbone. I’d take them to the kitchen, passing through the front room where Richie’s playpen was, and set them on the drainboard. And then I’d go to the pantry for a shot or two of something to warm me. It was winter when the green Ford died. It was winter when I lost the job at the butcher shop. A snowstorm was howling in off Lake Michigan when we got on the Greyhound for Texas. I’d heard of work in Midland.