We went to the movies Wednesday night, and she began to snap out of it a little. Neither of us had seen anything more of Sutton. She was very quiet, but she didn’t break down any more, and I just gave her time as she had asked me. I knew she was fighting it out with herself, and once or twice I had the feeling she was very near to telling me about it. She never did quite make it, but I left her alone. I knew that was what she wanted, and it was wonderful just being with her.
Gulick and I were busy at the lot, with the cars moving pretty well, and I was starting to work up another ad. I thought about the buried money a hundred times a day, but stayed away from the place. The uproar over the robbery was dying down a little, but I knew now I was being watched. The whole thing telegraphed itself. They’d given up too easily when they got that phone call from Harshaw. The alibi she’d handed me was second-hand and hearsay, coming to them through Harshaw, and yet they’d just folded up and quit as if she’d already testified to it under oath. I wasn’t free; I was just being allowed to run around on the end of a line until I hanged myself. Well, it was all right; two could play at that game. As long as I left the money where it was, I was safe. They had nothing else to go on, and they’d never find it.
Gulick and I were sitting in the office around four o’clock Thursday afternoon when the phone rang. He answered.
“Hello,” he said. “Harshaw’s Car Lot. Hello! Hello!” Then he put the receiver back in the cradle.
“Wrong number?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “They just hung up.”
About twenty minutes later the same thing happened again. I began to have a feeling about it then. The third time it rang he was outside and I answered myself. My hunch was right.
“It’s about time you answered,” she said. Her voice was pitched very low and I had a little trouble hearing it.
“We didn’t expect you back so soon,” I said, giving it the employee-to-boss’s-wife treatment. “I hope you had a nice trip.”
“Aren’t you cute?” she said. “Cut it out.”
“I didn’t think you’d be back till Monday.”
“I’ll tell you about that. When I see you. Tonight, that is.”
I looked up just then and saw Gulick coming back in from the lot. “Well, I don’t know.” I said. “It depends on how much you want for it. That model’s three years old.”
She was fast enough on the uptake. “Oh,” she said, “So old prissy-pants is there?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s right.”
“Well, he can’t hear me. So listen. Go to the same place you went before—“
Gulick sat down and started reading the paper at the next desk. “I don’t think we can made any deal on that basis,” I said.
“Don’t you really?” she asked softly. Something in her voice told me she was enjoying it.
“No.”
“Well, that is too bad, isn’t it?” she purred. Then she went on, “Oh, by the way, wasn’t it lucky I saw you over there the other day at the fire? Just suppose I’d missed you.”
“Yes, that’s right,” I said. I could feel the snare begin to tighten around my neck. It was nylon and very smooth, and all she was doing was adjusting my tie for me, the dirty little…
“I did so want to see you,” she said regretfully. “But of course, if you’ve got another date—“
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. ‘I’ll think it over.”
“You’re so nice. The same time as before, then?”
“Yes.”
“All right. ‘Bye now.”
I was furious as I drove out the highway after dark, but I was scared too. If it had been dangerous before, it was suicidal now. There wasn’t only Harshaw and the gossips to think about; there was that Sheriff. She had furnished me with an alibi, so how long would it take him to get suspicious if he even heard of our being seen together? And what were they doing back here on Thursday, four days ahead of time? It was funny, too, that he hadn’t come to the office. The whole thing was crazy.
Just before I turned off at the old gravel pit I checked the road behind me. There were some other headlights, two or three sets of them, about a half mile back. I made my turn anyway, and drove on into the timber. All the cars went on past without slowing down. I still wasn’t sure, though, and I felt uneasy.
I drove along the road until I found what I was looking for, a place where I could pull off into the trees and get the car out of sight. After I got it turned around facing the road again I cut the lights and waited. I’d have a pretty good look at anyone going past, but there’d be no chance he’d see me back of that screen of leaves and underbrush.
I lighted a cigarette and smoked it out nervously, listening to the night sounds and thinking of the dangerous mess I was drifting further into all the time. I had twelve thousand dollars I couldn’t touch, I was crazy about a girl who was in some kind of trouble she couldn’t tell me about, and I was getting more hopelessly fouled up every day with this crazy Dolores Harshaw. I had to ditch her while I was still able to.
13
Minutes dragged by, I finished the cigarette and crushed it out in the tray. Then I heard a car coming and could see splashes of light breaking against the trees. It came up past me and went on. I had a fairly good look at it and was sure it was the Oldsmobile. But maybe I’d better wait a few minutes and be sure she wasn’t being followed. Then I had a better idea; it couldn’t be over a quarter mile to the old sawmill, so why not walk? If I heard another car coming I could jump out of the road and take to the timber.
There wasn’t any other car. My eyes became accustomed to the sooty blackness under the trees, and when I came out into the clearing around the old mill I could see fairly well in the starlight. The Olds was parked off the road at the edge of the clearing. She wasn’t in it. Then I spotted her, a gleam of white over by the old sawdust pile. She was standing near the back of it, where it slid off into the shadowy depths of the ravine.
When I came up I saw why she’d been so easy to see. She was wearing only a pair of brief, pale-colored shorts and a halter, and all that stacked and uncovered blondeness was almost luminous in the darkness.
She turned when she heard me, and put her arms up. They tightened around my neck as she came up against me. You could no more halfway kiss her than you could fall part way down an elevator shaft and then change your mind, but even so she knew something was wrong.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Don’t tell me I’m slipping?”
I drew back a little. “What’d you have to see me about?”
“Now I’ve heard everything.”
The anger came boiling up in me again. Maybe she thought she owned me. “Well, if that’s all,” I said, “let’s get on with it. If we hurry, maybe we can make the next train home.”
Her palm exploded against my face and made my eyes sting. I grabbed her arm and tightened up on it. “Keep your hand to yourself, you little witch,” I said, “or I’ll break it off.”
“Well, so we’ve got another girl now, have we?”
“And whose business would that be if I had?”
“It might be mine. You ever think of that?”
“It’s not. And I didn’t.”
“You might be surprised.” She looked up at me with a tantalizing smile. “Now, let’s see. It wouldn’t be that leggy blonde in the loan office, would it? What’s her name? Harper? I saw you at the movies with her. But no, I guess she’s not quite your type. Pretty, all right, but a little young and watered-down for you.”
“Knock it off,” I said. “If you wanted to see me about something, start talking.”
“So it is the little dear?” She laughed. “Well, how do you like that? She must be the sly one, all right, with that innocent look. But I guess you can never tell about that long-underwear type.