There was a soft crunch of gravel outside as a car rolled up to the gasoline pumps. Hawks looked out through the screen door. A girl driving an old business coupe looked back at him through her rolled-down window.
Hawks turned toward the rear room. There was no sound. He took a step toward it, awkwardly, opened his mouth and closed it again.
The car door opened and clicked shut as the girl stepped out. She came up to the screen door and peered in. She was a short, dark-haired girl with pale features and wide lips now a little pinched by indecision as she shaded her eyes with her hand. She looked directly at Hawks, and he half shrugged.
She opened the door, and the bell tinkled. She stepped in, and said to Hawks, “I’d like to buy some gasoline.”
There was a sound of sudden movement in the back room — a heavy creak of bedsprings and an approaching shuffle of feet. Hawks gestured vaguely in that direction.
“Oh,” the girl said. She looked at Hawks’ clothes and smiled apologetically. “Excuse me. I thought you worked here.”
Hawks shook his head.
A fat, balding man in an undershirt and khaki pants, with his swollen feet in beach slippers and with strands of wet, dirty-gray hair pressed in swirls against his head, came out of the back room. He rubbed the pillow creases on his face and said in a hoarse voice, “Just catchin’ forty winks.” He darted his eyes from their hands to the counter, saw nothing there, and muttered, “People could rob me.” He cleared his throat and rubbed his neck. “What’ll it be?” he said to both of them.
“Well, this gentleman was here first,” the girl said.
The man looked at Hawks. “You been waitin’? I didn’t hear nobody call.” He looked sharply at the fold of Hawks’ suit coat over his arm, and swept a glance along the shelves. “How long you been here?”
“I only want to know if a city bus goes by here.”
“But you figured you’d just wait until I showed up? Suppose a bus had gone by while you was in here? Would o’ felt pretty foolish, wouldn’t you?”
Hawks sighed. “Does a bus pass by here?”
“Lots o’ buses, friend. But don’t none of them stop to pick up local passengers. Let you off anywhere, if you’re comin’ from the city, but won’t pick you up ’less it’s an official bus stop. Rules. Ain’t you got no car?”
“No, I don’t. How far is it to the nearest bus stop?”
“’Bout a mile and a half down the road, that way.” He waved. “Gas station. Henry’s Friendly Service.”
Hawks wiped his face again. “Suppose you sell this young lady some gasoline while I think about that.” He smiled briefly. “You can search me after you come back inside.”
The man flushed. His eyes darted from Hawks to the doorframe. “You been scr — foolin’ around with that bell? Pardon the French, miss.”
“Yes, I adjusted it. So no one else could creep up on you.”
The man muttered, “I gut a sawed-off shotgun back there’d blow you right out the front of the store.” He glared at Hawks, then glanced aside toward the girl. “You want some gas, miss?” He grinned. “Fix you up in a jiffy.” He shouldered past Hawks to the doorway, and awkwardly held the screen door open for her with his soft, extended white arm. He said to Hawks from the doorway, “You better figure out what you’re gonna do, friend — walk, hitchhike, buy somethin’ — I ain’t got all day.” He grinned again toward the girl. “Got to take care of the young lady, here.”
The girl smiled uneasily at Hawks and said, “Excuse me,” softly, as she moved past him. As she stepped through the doorway, she brushed her left hip and shoulder against the frame to clear the owner’s bulk on her other side.
The man pursed his lips with a spitting motion behind her back, ran measuring, deprived eyes over her skirt and blouse, and followed her.
Hawks watched through the window as she got back into the car and then asked for ten gallons of regular. The man banged the hose nozzle loose from its bracket and cranked the dial reset lever with an abrupt jerk of his arm. He stood glowering toward the front of the car, his hands in his pockets, while the automatic nozzle pumped gasoline into the tank. As the automatic surge valve tripped shut, while the pump’s counter was passing nine and a half, the man immediately yanked the dribbling nozzle out and slammed it back on its bracket. He crumpled the five-dollar bill the girl held out through her window. “C’mon back in the store for your change,” he growled, and strode away.
Hawks waited until the man was bent over the counter, fumbling in a cash drawer under its top. Then he said, “I’ll take the lady’s change back to her.”
The man turned and stared at him, money clutched in his fist. Hawks looked toward the girl, who had the screen door half open, her face somewhat strained. “That’ll be all right, won’t it?” he said to her.
She nodded. “Yes,” she said nervously.
The man slapped the change into Hawks’ palm. Hawks looked down at it.
“Ain’t that right for ten gallons, mister?” the man said belligerently. “You want to look and see what it says on that God-damned pump?”
“It’s not right for four-tenths less than ten gallons. I did look.” Hawks continued to face the man, who turned suddenly and scrabbled in the cash drawer again. He gave Hawks the rest of the change.
“Come in here and push a man around in his own store,” the man said under his breath. “Go on — get out of here, you don’t want to buy somethin’.” He turned away toward the back of the store.
Hawks stepped outside and gave the girl her change. As the screen shut behind him, the bell tinkled. He shook his head. “I made him act that way. I upset him. I’m sorry he was so unpleasant to you.”
The girl had brought her purse with her and was putting her money back into it. “You’re not responsible for what he is.” Without raising her face, she said with some effort, “Do — do you need a ride into the city?”
“To the bus stop, yes, thank you.” He smiled gently as she looked up. “I forgot I wasn’t a boy any more. I set out on a longer walk than I thought.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” the girl said. “Why should you think you need a passport to ride with someone?”
Hawks shrugged. “People seem to want it.” He shook his head again, a little bemused. “Why don’t you?”
The girl frowned and shifted her feet. “I have to go all the way into the city,” she said. “There’s no point just dropping you at the bus stop.”
Hawks plucked uneasily at the coat over his arm. Then he put it on and buttoned it. “All right.” A trace of vertical shadow appeared in the coarse skin between his eyebrows and remained there. He smoothed the coat against his ribs. “Thank you.”
“Let’s go, then,” the girl said. They got into the car and pulled out into the traffic stream on the highway.
They sat stiffly in the car as it rolled down the road, its tires thumping regularly over the oozing expansion joints in the concrete.
“I don’t look like a pickup,” the girl said.
Hawks looked at her, still frowning faintly. “You’re veiy attractive.”
“But I’m not easy! I’m only offering you a ride. Because you need it, I suppose.” Her short hands clicked their scarlet nails against the steering wheel’s worn, pitted plastic.
“I know that,” he said quietly. “And I don’t think you’re doing it out of gratitude. That fellow wasn’t anybody you couldn’t have handled by yourself. I only spared you some effort. I’m not your gallant rescuer, and I haven’t won your hand in mortal combat.”
“Well, then,” she said.
“We’re trapping ourselves again,” he said. “Neither of us knows quite what to do. We’re talking in circles. If that fellow hadn’t come out, we’d still be in that store, dancing a ritual dance around each other.”