“I’ve lost my traveler’s checks, every one of them, all the money we have. My wife said the money would be safer in traveler’s checks, we’re headed up to Oregon, I have a job there, and now—lost. Just—they’re gone. I don’t know where I could have dropped them …”
Lee clutched his bandana to wipe his eyes. He could feel the stares of people behind him. The teller started to reach out through the cage as though she would take his hand, then drew her hand back, but her face showed real concern. Maybe she had a forgetful father, Lee thought, some gentle, addled old duffer who too often stirred her pity. She said,“Do you have something to identify the lost checks, sir?”
“Not much, I’m afraid.” He pulled the little slip of recorded numbers, in their transaction folder, out of his shirt pocket. “Just this.”
Her gentle green eyes brightened when she saw the folder. She took it from him carefully, looking at the name of the issuing bank.“May I see your driver’s license, sir?”
He handed over the temporary license.“Just had it renewed.” He let his unsteady voice carry softly. “It’s my wife’s sister, she—we’re having to move up to Oregon to look after her, we don’t think she has very long, and with the money so short … I just don’t know how I could have lost them. They were so loose inthe folder, one came out accidentally. My wife said they’d be safer in the glove compartment, and I thought I put them there. But then I couldn’t find them. I thought maybe I put them in my pocket when we stopped to get gas, but I paid for the gas with cash and …” He shook his head, clenching his hands together like a little old lady, trying to look shrunken and pitiful. “I could give you our address in Oregon, if there’s any way you could help us?”
Her eyes widened as she glanced at the line behind him, he knew everyone was listening, and she let her soft voice carry.“Mr. Dawson, we like to give our customers personal service. But, you see, our bank manager’s out today.”
Lee swallowed.
“But Miss Lester is here. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get her.” She smiled at the line of waiting customers, and left the window. When Lee turned to look, most of the faces behind him were soft with sympathy. Only two men were scowling, impatient to take care of their business. Lee glanced down shyly, ducking his head, smiling sheepishly; most of the folks smiled back, nodding encouragement. He could see, at a desk at the back of the bank, Miss Miller speaking with a dark-haired older woman. The woman looked up, studying Lee. As the two women talked, the tension behind Lee in the line was like electricity, sympathy and impatience mixed, and Lee’s own nerves were strung tight. He was shaking with anxiety for real; by the time the pretty young teller returned to the cage, he was so nervous he could feel a cough coming. He did his best to swallow it back, but the cough racked him so hard he doubled over. He swallowed back phlegm, at last got himself under control. As he straightened up, another fit of coughing almost took him when he saw the sheaf of traveler’s checks in the young teller’s hand.
“I can reissue the checks, Mr. Dawson,” she said, smiling. Lee heard a pleased murmur of voices behind him. As he let out a breath, shaken and weak, he felt the cat brush against his boot, pressing hard, as if to say,See, everything went just fine. Lee watched Miss Miller count out seven one-hundred-dollar traveler’s checks. She showed Lee where to sign them, recorded the numbers, and clamped them securely into a new folder for him. Lee started to cough again, trying to thank her.
“We’re glad we could help,” she said softly. “Please be careful with them, now. You and Mrs. Dawson have a safe trip up to Oregon, and I hope her sister’s better soon.”
Collecting the folder, he thanked her again, reached through the grid to pat her hand, and then turned away moving slowly, almost feebly out of the bank.
On the street again, pretending to hurry to rejoin his weeping wife, James Dawson picked up his speed and, once he’d rounded the corner, he was moving fast and grinning with smug success. Not a damn thing wrong with that scam.
It took him more than an hour to cash five of the traveler’s checks, walking long distances between stores, buying a few items in each, half a dozen pairs of shorts, a shirt, some work gloves and, in a hardware store a small trenching tool. He saved the last two checks for the pawnshop. And as he moved around the town, every now and then he could feel the cat pressing against his leg, could feel it now as he pushed in through the barred pawnshop door. Why was the cat so interested? Just plain nosiness? Or was the ghost cat bringing him luck? Helping him along, tweaking the sympathy of young Miss Miller and her superior, maybe even weaving a sense of honesty around Lee as he dealt with each clerk and shopkeeper. Could the ghost cat do that? More power to him, then, Lee thought as he pushed in among the crowded counters of the pawnshop.
There were no other customers. Every surface was stacked with binoculars, cameras, musical instruments, jewelry, guns and ammo, all of it familiar and comforting. A pawnshop was always his destination soon after parole or release, a pawnshop was a source of sustenance where he could gather together the supplies to feel whole again, the equipment he needed to feel capable again and master of his own fate. Even the square-faced shopkeeper behind the counter seemed comfortable and familiar, the way he peered up over his horn-rimmed glasses, the way his veined hands stayed very still on the newspaper he had been reading, waiting to see if Lee wanted to sell, or buy, or try to rob him, his hands poised where he could reach, in an instant, the loaded weapon he’d have ready just beneath the counter. The man gave Lee a shopkeeper’s all-purpose smile. “Help you?”
Lee eased down a row of showcases, looking through the glass tops.“Like to see what you have in the way of revolvers.”
“Something for protection?”
“You might say that. Some critter is getting my calves—got home from a trip up north, my wife was pretty upset. I’ve watched for two nights—I don’t know what’s after them but I mean to find out.”
The man slid open a glass door.“Here’s a nice little snub-nose I can let go at a reasonable price.”
Lee looked down at the cheap little handgun.“I don’t want a toy. I want a gun.” He moved on down the showcase. “There. Let me see that one.”
He accepted the heavy revolver, opened and spun the cylinder, and eased it closed. He saw how the bluing had worn off from riding in its holster. He looked down the length of the six-inch barrel, examined the scars on the wooden grips. A forty-five-caliber, double-action no-nonsense handgun designed on the lines of the Paterson Colt. Not so fine or rare a weapon, but it would do for what he wanted.“How much?”
“Hundred dollars. Hundred and thirty with the holster.”
“I’ll take both, and a box of ammunition.”
But when Lee pulled out the traveler’s checks, the man did a double take. He looked at Lee hard for a minute.
“These are the last two. Always carry them when I travel. Hope you don’t mind. Won’t be needing them now, for a while.”
At last, under Lee’s innocent gaze, the clerk cashed the checks. Lee bought a wide roll of gray tape that the shop used for packing; he paid for that, too, and, knowing the guy was wondering if he’d been taken, he mosied on out, paused to look again in the shop window, then walked casually away to the bus stop. Moving on around the corner out of sight, he leaned against the brick building letting his rapid heart slow, waiting for the next bus bound to the airport. The twenty-minute delay made him real nervous before the bus finally appeared, before he was safely aboard and away from the watchful owner of the pawnshop.
Getting off at the air terminal, double-timing across the long stretch of tarmac, he arrived back at the hangar just as the mechanic was pushing his wheeled tool chest away from the yellow biplane. Reaching into the plane, Lee stashed his packages under the makeshift seat, then stood watching Mark approach from the office, where he had gone to pay the bill. As they pushed the plane out away from the hangar, Lee couldn’t help wondering where the cat was now, but knowing that wherever he lingered at the moment was exactly where he wanted to be.