“That’s right,” Milt said, closing up his suitcase. “You’re a great one for driving around. Cathy says you came up from Reno.” He stuck several objects in his pockets and glanced around for more. “When did you want to get them? The trouble is I’m not going to be back in Seattle for a couple of weeks.”
“I want to get them as soon as possible. If I get them at all.”
“Have you tried one out?”
“No,” he said.
“Don’t you think you better?”
“I will,” he said. “Before I put any money in.”
“You know, you’re a real buyer. You’re not a damn bit interested in the machine; you’re just looking at it as an investment. You’re detached. Aloof, like a scientist.” He slapped Bruce on the arm. “Come on. We’re finished.”
They walked downstairs. “I want to settle this,” Bruce said, “and I don’t see how I can if you hop in your Mercedes and drive off.”
“Can’t you come along?” Then he noticed the Merc. “Oh,” he said. “I just figured I’d give you a lift to Montpelier and we could chew the fat as we went. I was looking forward to company. Why don’t you leave this tank here? I’ll be in Montpelier a day or so and then I’ll be heading back here. You can pick it up again then.”
“And then what?” Bruce said.
“It depends on what we hatch up.” Suddenly Milt became serious; in a low, humble voice he said, “You know, I almost go nuts driving alone on the road. I can really stand company; I mean it. And I’m positive we can figure out something on the Jap machines.”
It occurred to Bruce, then, to wonder how ill the man was. If he required constant care. He quailed from the notion of being Milt Lumky’s nurse, as Cathy Hermes was. And as perhaps other persons throughout Milton Lumky territory were. But he had to settle the business about the typewriters. And if he said no to the idea of going to Montpelier, then Milt would simply wave good-bye and ride off; he had already started the motor and was behind the wheel. Obviously he was in a genuine hurry. It was a wonder he had come back to the apartment at all.
“You can’t stick around here long enough to discuss it?” he said.
“It isn’t a question of that, it’s a question of gettng some action started on the thing. Throw your stuff into the back and we’ll be in Montpelier in a couple of hours. Your car’ll be safe here; just get everything out of it and lock it up.”
Reluctantly, he did so. He added his suitcase to the heap of sample cases in the back of the Mercedes, and a moment later Lumky sped out into the mid-morning Pocatello traffic.
The trip between Pocatello and Montpelier was by no means as bad as the trip between Boise and Pocatello. They made good time, seeing mostly farms and orchards; the pavement itself was in fair shape and several portions had been recently laid down. Traffic was light. Lumky did not drive fast, but he kept up a good professional pace, passing slow vehicles and getting out of the path of new Buicks and Cads that wanted as much speed as they could flog out of their three hundred horse engines. He averaged something over fifty-five, which, on that road, was not bad.
That afternoon they reached Montpelier. The local streets were in terrible disrepair, almost a form of degeneracy. In some spots the pavement had entirely broken down, leaving nothing but rubble. All the houses had an archaic, woebegone appearance; they did not need paint or obvious work, but each was a somber neutral color, as nondescript as possible. The houses looked like farmhouses brought together, with weedy lawns and flower beds in between. Many of the cars they saw parked had winter tires, suggesting that during rains the mud made the roads into pigwallows. The first motel they saw had only a dirt pasture in which to park; the cabins were clapboard. shacks and the sign was hand-painted on the wood, not neon. They next passed a tumble-down garage and then two or three gas stations, an ice cream stand, and after that the main street of town with its bars, workman’s clothing stores, tiny theater, and abandoned warehouses that had once served the train during the decades of heavy freight. The air was filled with dust. All the cars they saw were gray with dust. The men on the sidewalks wore wide-brimmed western hats. The sight discouraged both him and Lumky.
“What a place,” Lumky said. “I stay here as little as possible. And right across the border from Utah …” He pointed. “As soon as you go down there you find yourself in a forest, and then you come out in Logan. That’s where I’d like to be. It’s clean. All Utah is clean.”
“I know,” he said. And he thought, This is the extreme edge of Milton Lumky territory. Its frontier.
“In Utah they’d never let this dust blow around,” Lumky said, searching for a parking slot. Mud-spattered pick-up trucks had most of them already, the work vehicles of a farm area. “They have water running down the gutters. Everything’s fertile. They make it that way; it’s due to L.S.D.”
“L.D.S.,” Bruce said.
“That’s right. I’m thinking of ‘LSMFT.’ Of course that’s the joker. If you live in Utah you have to join the Church. It’s a hell of a thing—they won’t let you alone. You can’t buy cigarettes or booze; they look at you funny if you drink coffee. You can’t rent a room or go to the toilet.” He found a parking slot and parked the Mercedes. “These people up here don’t give a damn about anything. The whole town’s collapsing in ruins.” He got out of the car and stepped up on the sidewalk, fastening his belt; while driving he had undone it.
On the drive both of them had felt under the weather. Bruce was not used to being a passenger while someone else took the wheel and he had quickly become a thorn in Lumky’s side. But now that they were out of the car they both began to feel better.
“How about something to eat?” Lumky said.
“When do you have to see these people?”
“As soon as possible. But I’m hungry. If I go without eating my gut will growl.” He started off. “And that kills sales.”
They found themselves in a long dark tunnel-like café, filled with the screech of electric guitar music from the jukebox in the back, gray with the smoke of burning grease. At the counter a row of men sat, all with hats on, eating from platters. The walls of the place had been painted black. Three tired middle-aged women washed dishes ceaselessly.
“This is limbo,” Milt said. “But the food’s good. Have some fried ham.” He located two vacant stools and climbed over one. Bruce took the one beside it.
The food, when it arrived, was not bad.
“There’re worse places than Montpelier,” Milt said, as they ate. “Don’t let it get you down.”
He said, “The worst I’ve ever seen is around Cheyenne, on the road up from Denver through Greeley.”
“Cathy’s husband owns some of those auto wrecking yards in Colorado,” Milt said. “A littering moron. It never occurred to me that anybody deliberately put that junk along side the highway. But she says he dumps it there very carefully. He probably thinks it’s pretty.”
They ate their meal, drank their coffee. “I wonder what I can get the Jap typewriters at,” Bruce said. “Per each.”
“The things have been in warehouses for a couple of years, now,” Milt said. “This whole Jap import business is a mess. They shouldn’t run you too much.”
“Less than a hundred dollars?”
“Much less.”
That raised his spirits radically. “Give me a general idea.”
“Seems to me it was around forty dollars a machine. In original cartons. There were about two hundred of them in this particular warehouse, when I saw them. That would make it—” He calculated. “About eight thousand dollars for the lot. Do you have that much on hand?”