"Did you see it in his hand when he got off?"
"No, ma'am. People getting off have their backs to me."
"Did you see who took the seat he'd been sitting in . . . ?"
"No, ma'am. Lessee. He got off at Lambert? Well, I had a little poker game with a green Pontiac there—where he got off. This Pontiac and me was outbluffing each other, so I paid no attention. . . ."
"Was the bus full?"
"No, ma'am. Not at that hour."
"Do you understand?" said Rosemary. "It's a deadly poison. In the wrong bottle. Do you understand that?"
The bus driver said sweetly, "I understand." Did you notice anyone getting off with a green paper
"I can't see their hands when they're getting off, ma'am," he reminded her patiently.
Rosemary clasped her own hands and looked off across the field.
Paul said, "Somebody picked it up and took it and there's no way of finding out who. . . . The broadcast warning will either reach him or it won't."
The two cops were Ustening quietly. The older one shifted his weight.
"Maybe," said Rosemary. "Maybe there is something we can do. You were there," she said to the bus driver. "Did you recognize anybody else who was on the bus then?"
"Hey?" said the bus driver, wrinkling his brow.
"Anyone else we could find and ask? Somebody who was also there and might have noticed?"
"Wait a minute." The driver seemed to bristle up. "This stuff's poison, hey?"
Paul said, "Damned dangerous," and looked angry. "He took it from my lab. He knew what it was. He should never . . . Oh, come home, Rosie."
"A stranger," said Rosemary, still addressing the bus driver, "trusting iil a label. Some stranger to us, who doesn't want to die. People do trust labels. . . ."
"Yes," he said, "they got a right to. And there was my blonde."
"Blonde?"
"Yeah, and while she wouldn't ... I don't think. . . . Nobody," said the bus driver forcefully, heaving himself away from his leaning position, "is going to poison my blonde!" He grew taller. "Is that your car?"
"Who is this blonde?" the young policeman said moving in.
"I don't know her name."
"Where does she live?"
"I don't know where she lives.''
"She was on the bus?"
"Yeh, she was on the bus."
"If you don't know her ... how come . . . ?"
"She doesn't know that she's my blonde—not yet. One of these days . . . Aw, I was biding my time. Now look," the bus driver said, "I'm going. One thing I do know and that's the stop she gets off at. I can find her. And nobody's going to poison my blonde."
He set off toward Paul's car.
"Oh yes! Paul," Rosemary cried, "Kenneth, come on! We'll all go, find her. She might have noticed . . . Hurry,
come on
The whole group was streaming toward Paul's car.
The older policeman said, "Wait ... I can call in, you know. I can get a prowl car there in seconds ..."
"Where?" said the driver. "When I don't know where myself? All I got is the stop. Comer of Allen and the Boulevard. What can you do with that? Thanks, anyway, but I guess I got to go find her myself. I'll know her when I see her, see?"
"What about this bus?"
"Life and death," said the driver, with his hand on Paul's car. "Let them fire me." Paul was right behind him. "Give me the keys," the driver said.
"My car . . . I'll drive." Paul looked as if he were suffering. His mouth was grim.
"You are an amateur," said the bus driver, and took the keys out of Paul's hand.
Mr. Gibson knew only that Rosemary's hands were pulling and hustling him. He and she got into the back seat. Paul got in beside the bus driver.
"Good luck," said the older policeman, rather kindly. "Call in, now." The younger one was chewing grass.
The bus driver was moving levers. Paul's car surged backward, slipped out into traffic. It seemed to respond with pleasure to a master's hand. "I can make better time, that's all," the bus driver said. "Driving's my business. Every business has its skills."
"That's all right," Paul murmured.
They were sailing back toward town.
Chapter XV
"The' name's Lee Coffey" said the bus driver suddenly. Paul straightened up with an effect of relaxing, of feeling better. "I'm Paul Townsend," he said in something nearer his normal amiable voice. "A neighbor of the Gibsons'."
"I see. And the lady is Mrs. Gibson."
"Rosie," said Paul, "this is Lee Coffey—"
"Her name is Rosemary" Mr. Gibson heard himself saying loudly. "My name is Kenneth Gibson. I am the man . . ."
"How do, Mrs. Rosemary?" the bus driver said over his shoulder. "Say, Mr. Kenneth Gibson, what was it that was coming to you . . . you'd rather take poison?"
Mr. Gibson tried to swallow with a dry mouth.
Paul said quickly, "No, no, don't talk about it. It was a temporary . . . He didn't even know what he was doing. He must have been crazy. He's all right now."
"What puts him all right, all of a sudden?" the bus driver said.
"Why, he knows ... he has friends. He's got everything to live for."
"Candy?" said the bus driver.
"I don't know what you mean."
"I never could get that," said the bus driver, sliding the car skillfully to a strategic position in the center lane. "How come—now you take a suicide sitting on a ledge up high, see ... ? People trying to talk him out of it, offer the same as loUypops. Everybody's his friend, they tell him. Come home, the dog needs him. Or he can have beer. He can have chocolate. . . . Seems to me if a man gets to the point of taking his life he's got more serious things in his mind. It's no time for candy, is it?"
"You are wrong," said Mr. Gibson forcefully.
"That so?"
"There is one moment when a loud pop is enough, either way."
"I see," said the bus driver. "Yeah .... well, you'd know. That's very interesting."
The car moved. It was not speeding. But no second was lost by indecision or by fumbhng. Mr. Gibson found himself admiring this with peculiar pleasure.
"If you want to talk about it . . ." the bus driver said, and Paul said again, "No, no . . ."
Mr. Gibson answered truthfully. "I'd like to talk to you about it. Not just now, I guess." He felt expanded and relaxed in contact with a mind that interested him. A mind that cheerfully pried off a certain lid ... a lid that had been stifling and muffling and shutting up that which is interesting.
He looked sideways at Rosemary, and her eyes were
visited by the ghost of a smile. "Tell me about your blonde, Mr. Coffey," she said almost'brightly.
"Look at me, rushing to the rescue," the bus driver said, "of a blonde who doesn't know she's mine. I'll tell you a little bit. I see her nearly every day. Watch for her, now. I'm getting to know her. I'm thinking of getting up the nerve to speak to her. Never have. Doesn't matter. I already know that I like her a lot. So how can I let her get the poison? Will this offend her, Mrs. Gibson?"
"Rosemary," said Rosemary gravely. "No, it won't offend her, Mr. Coffey. It won't offend her at all."
"Call me Lee," said the bus driver. "These are unusual circumstances. Listen, Rosemary, she is a beautiful blonde.''
"You are a very interesting man," said Rosemary.
"That's possible," said Lee Coffey thoughtfully.
It was Paul who came in with an ordinary question. "Have you been a bus driver long?"
"Ten years. Since I got out of the Army. Because I like to think."
"Like to think?" Paul repeated after him, seeming to find this shockingly obscure.
"Ruminate. Ruminate," said the bus driver. "That's why I like a useful but not creative job. You start pushing and trying to a purpose ... or even just trying to make a million dollars ... it warps your thinking. My thinking, anyhow. The kind I like."
Paul said, impatient with bewilderment, "How can you possibly find this girl, this blonde, whoever she is . . . ?"