“Go ahead,” he said.
“Be sure you don’t put everything you have on the block. Try to make sure that if everything falls apart you’ll still come out with something. Don’t wind up empty-handed.”
He said, “She’s putting up much more than I am.”
His former boss excused himself and went downstairs to the main floor. He returned presently carrying a wrapped package, sealed with the firm’s special clip that always got fixed on during a purchase. “So you won’t leave here feeling bad,” he said.
“I don’t feel bad,” he answered. But he opened the package. It turned out to be a quart of imported discount Scotch that his former boss had gone down and bought for him at the liquor department. Thanks,” he said.
“You always talk about liking Scotch.” His former boss shook hands with him, clapped him on the back, and sent him out of the building and onto the sidewalk.
As he got into his car he thought, Now I have a six hundred mile drive to make. But this was one road that he knew perfectly. He stopped at a grocery store and bought some food to carry along with him, and then he set off along highway 40, going East toward the junction with 95. Off to try to find Milton Lumky, he thought. Who is somewhere in Idaho selling paper wholesale in one town or another, driving his Mercedes-Benz and wearing his lemon-colored short-sleeve sports shirt and gray slacks, listening to his car radio and smoking a White Owl cigar.
10
The road brought him closer and closer to Boise, and he began to want to stop there. He yearned to stay overnight with Susan and Taffy in the house. But near Winnemucca he had had a flat tire, and that had held him up for several hours. He could not afford to cut it too close; he needed to get into Pocatello with plenty of time to spare.
Anyhow his delay altered his schedule and brought him into Boise at three o’clock in the morning. Of course he had a key to the house, but if he stopped at all he would want to stay most of the next day. There would be problems that had come up that Susan needed help with; once that got started he might never leave.
I might simply stay, he thought.
So he drove on through dark, closed-up Boise and out the far side, on Highway 30, the long straight stretch before the obnoxious twists and descents began. Little traffic moved with him. He had the road to himself.
At dawn he pulled off onto the shoulder, went wretchedly around and crawled into the back of the car, and slept. Just before noon the hot sun woke him up. He returned to the front and drove along the road until he saw a roadside diner. There he ate and rested. The owner permitted him to use the diner’s washroom; he shaved, washed the upper part of his body, changed his clothes, squirted on new deodorant, and returned to the car feeling improved.
As he drove, it occurred to him that now he had entered Milton Lumky territory. At any moment he might spy the gray Mercedes. Suppose it was going in the opposite direction? Should he make a U-turn and go after it? Probably it would be going toward Pocatello, so he had only to catch up with it and go on by; his Merc had a higher top speed and that would not be hard to do. But, he thought, suppose it is not Milton Lumky and his Mercedes; suppose it is an entirely different Mercedes with someone else, a total stranger, inside. Suppose I chase it for miles, farther and farther away from Pocatello … but how many gray Mercedes would there be driving around this part of Idaho at this particular time? Still, it would only take one. One in addition to Milt’s.
Or, he thought, I might run into him at a roadside café or at a gas station. At a motel. At a drugstore in some small town, both of us buying suntan oil or cigarettes or beer. I might stop at a red light and see him walking along the street of some small town. I might see him off on the shoulder napping in the rear of the Mercedes. In Pocatello, when I get there, I might see him crossing in a crosswalk, or roaming along with his satchel. Anywhere, at any moment. Now that I am in Milton Lumky territory.
He reached Pocatello that evening, just at sunset. The appointment that Milt had with the dairy did not take place until the following morning, at ten-thirty. So he had arrived with time to spare. He turned off at a motel called the Grand View Motel, rented a room, parked his car, and carried his suitcase indoors and set it down on the bed.
It’s even possible, he thought, that the next car that drives in here to the Grand View Motel will be his gray Mercedes.
The evening air was warm. He left the screen door open as he took a shower in the cubicle-like bathroom.
It occurred to him that he might benefit by knowing the exact location of the dairy. So, when he had finished his shower and had put on his dressy single-breasted suit, he set out in the car to search for it. The motel owner gave him complete instructions, and he found the dairy within a few minutes. Naturally everyone had gone home. A row of trucks were parked in the rear, by a metal loading dock. The empty trucks depressed him, and he drove back into town. What a hell of a thing to drive a thousand miles for, he thought to himself. But in the daytime it would be more pleasant.
Having nothing else to do he cruised up and down the highway on both sides of Pocatello, keeping his eye out for the Mercedes. At each motel he slowed down for a good long inspection of the cars parked between the cabins or in the space before the numbered doors. He saw every make of car and every variety of motel, but no sign of the Mercedes. For hours he kept it up, driving back and forth, slowing at each motel or wherever he saw cars parked. Later in the evening the traffic began to thin, and by two o’clock he had street after street of the town to himself. But he continued to drive; he did not feel much like it, but on the other hand he did not care to shut himself up in his motel room and go to sleep. At three o’clock he became too halting in his reactions to continue. Without having had any success he drove back to his own motel, parked, went inside, and prepared for bed.
The next morning he drove over to the dairy.
In the sunlight the place struck him as much more cheerful, although he saw almost as little sign of life. Evidently the milk had been brought in at dawn, bottled and taken off to be delivered; the trucks that he had seen lined up were nowhere in sight. The office of the dairy was a small building at one end of the bottling and pasteurizing plant, and he opened the door and entered.
Behind a varnished oak desk sat a kindly-looking woman of a country sort, wearing a flowered dress. She asked him what she could do for him, and he explained to her that he wanted to see Mr. Lumky when he came in.
“He should be in any time now,” the woman said. She showed him a chair in which he could sit, and some Saturday Evening Posts to read. But he preferred to stand by a window overlooking the company’s parking lot; he watched for the Mercedes, as he had been doing now since entering Milton Lumky territory. It had become an obsession, an end in itself—not Lumky but the Mercedes was the sight he held out for.
Some time later the receptionist approached him and said, “Excuse me, but Mr. Lumky called and said he isn’t going to be able to keep his appointment with Mr. Ennis.”
He regarded her stupidly.
“He said he’s ill,” she said.
“When will he be in, then?” he said.
“He told Mr. Ennis that he’d get in touch with him very shortly.”
“Is he here in town?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “He’s staying somewhere here.”
“Did you find out where?”
“No,” she said. “He said he would get in touch with us.”
He left his name and the phone number at his motel, and walked out of the building.
Now he had no idea what to do. He did what he had been doing; he drove around Pocatello, up one street and along the next, searching for the Mercedes. There was nothing to think about. He had driven this far; he certainly couldn’t leave. So he drove around and around, and at sunset he had still seen no sign of the Mercedes, either in motion or parked.