Girl Out Back - Charles Williams(5)

the station wagon, I ate the sandwich and drank some
coffee, and then sat smoking and thinking about it. The
first thing I had to do was get back in the cabin. Today, if
possible, for it would save a trip, and I was afire with
impatience. Maybe my luck would hold and he’d go out
fishing again in the afternoon. I returned to the point and
waited. Hours went by. Finally, a little after five in the
afternoon, I heard his motor start and he came out of the
cove. He went on up toward the bend at the far end of the
reach; maybe he’d found good fishing there this morning. I
slipped through the timber, and when I reached the
clearing I could still hear his motor fading away in the
distance.
I entered the cabin, beginning to feel at home in the
place now. The glasses he’d had on were atop the chest of
drawers, where they had been before.
I stepped quickly
over to the trunk, lifted off the piles of magazines, and
opened it. The others were still in the tray, inside their
case. I slipped them out, and compared them. As far as I
could tell, they were exactly alike; the ones in the trunk
were merely a spare set in case he broke the others. They
each had the same thick lenses that gave terrific
magnification. Without them, he’d see ordinary print as a
grayish and chaotic blur. So far, so good. I returned the
spare set to their case, shoved them in my pocket, and
closed the trunk. Leaving the other pair on the chest of
drawers, I went out. On the way back to the car, I threw
the ones I’d taken into the lake, case and all. They sank out
of sight. I drove on back to town.
When I got home Jessica was out somewhere. Probably at
a movie, I thought. I didn’t care; we were finished, and the
hell with it. Once I got my hands on the late Mr. Haig’s
enticing legacy . . . No, I cautioned myself, not so fast. Not
until some of the heat had cooled down and they’d written
this area off as a fluke. I might have to stick around as long
as six months, just to be sure.
I showered, shaved, and changed clothes, and then
began searching through a trunk full of personal gear for
what I’d need. I found an old passport photograph that
would do, and a slim black wallet I’d had for use with
evening clothes. What else? Oh, yes; a piece of clear
plastic. I couldn’t find any that would serve; that on my
Girl Out Back— 95
driver’s license was too small. Well, there should be
something around the shop.
I drove over. It was dark now. I let myself in, re-locked
the door, and went into the office, switching on the light
over the desk. I drew the blind over the single window.
Now, what about the plastic? The answer occurred to me
almost instantly; I went out into the showroom and got a
fly box out of the showcase, one of the small ones without
compartments in it. Taking out my knife, I cut the bottom
out of it. After rounding the corners slightly, I had a flat
and transparent sheet nearly three inches by four. I
studied it. Maybe it was too clear. Taking it back to the
shop, I rubbed one side of it with steel wool to scratch it up
a little. It was just right.
Back in the office, I went to work on the wallet with the
knife, cutting a window in the inner flap just slightly
smaller than the plastic. Then I slipped the latter under it,
and stuck it in place with cement. I put the whole thing
under the desk dictionary to set up while I prepared the
card.
What, exactly, had it looked like? I couldn’t remember,
and then realized that that in itself was the answer. It
made no difference at all as long as it had a picture and a
signature of sorts. I located an inventory card, rolled it into
the typewriter, and pecked out a little form attesting that
the following
Mr. _________ was a paid-up member of the Daughters of
the American Revolution and was permitted to solicit on
the streets after examination by a competent physician.
Then I typed in George U. Ward as the name of the
individual in question, signed his name in the lower left
corner, and scrawled something flourishing and
indecipherable in the lower right. I stuck the photograph to
it with some more of the cement. Very impressive, I
thought, studying it critically. I didn’t have anything I
could use for a seal, but it didn’t matter. I trimmed it to the
right size, tucked it in behind the plastic window in the
wallet, and cemented it in place, wondering what the
penalty was for impersonating a Federal officer, even with
something like this. It didn’t matter, however; who would
ever know?
Girl Out Back— 96
The warrant was easier. I took one of the finance
company’s standard mortgage forms from the desk, filled
in Cliffords’ name, and signed it William Butler Yeats in
another burst of calligraphic frenzy. Gathering up the
scraps of leather and plastic left over from the operation, I
disposed of them in the garbage can at the rear of the
building. I sealed the warrant and the do-it-yourself
credentials in an envelope, shoved it in my pocket, and
went back to the house. Jessica still hadn’t returned. So
much the better; I didn’t want her watching and
wondering.
When I went upstairs, got a suitcase out of the hall
closet, and carried it into the bedroom, I found why she
was still gone. A note was pinned to the pillow on what had
been my side of the bed until I’d move to the den. Nice
touch, I thought; Clausewitz couldn’t have improved on it.
If I never did see it, it wasn’t her fault.
“Just in case you might possibly be interested,” it said, “I
have gone to Sanport for a week at the beach. Don’t forget
to put out the cat. Or cats.”
Well, that was fine. Except for Otis at the store, there
was nobody who would be likely to notice or be curious
about my movements now until the whole thing was
finished. And I could take care of Otis all right. I put the
open leather bag on the bed and turned to the closet.
Selecting a conservative, tropical-weight suit, I folded it,
hanger and all, into the bag.
Well, maybe she had friends down there. Some girl,
maybe, who’d gone to school with her and later married a
man named Kleinfelter who was in the cotton brokerage
business. Sit on the beach and cut up old touches—that
sort of thing. Who cared?
Let’s see. White shirt, cuff-links, blue tie. There was
room to put in the soft straw hat without crushing it.
Kleinfelter himself would be five-seven and bald, and
never talk about anything but the tax structure. And,
anyway, it was Mrs. Kleinfelter she’d gone to school with.
Remember those silly pajama parties? Remember that
creepy Rowbottom boy, the one whose ears stuck straight
out from the side of his head . . . “
Girl Out Back— 97
For Christ’s sake, I thought; what do I care what she
went to Sanport for, or who she knows down there? We’re
washed up, we’re not even sleeping together any more,
and what she does is her own business.
She wouldn’t, anyway. She didn’t go in for that sort of
thing. So maybe she did have all the dulcet amiability of a
maladjusted camel when she got her back up and started
going elemental and bitchily female all over the place, she
still wouldn’t . . .
No?
Well, look, stupid; it took you sixty days, and you’re no
muscle-headed beach boy. You’re an operator.
But that was different. She’s sore now; she’s boiling.
She’s furious. She could raid a Sea Scout encampment, out
of sheer spite.
I took the suitcase out and put it in the back of the
station wagon, covering it with a couple of old blankets and
a kapok life-belt so it wouldn’t be seen.
It was lonely being all by myself in the house, and I was a
long time getting to sleep. Just combat fatigue. I thought; I
was up there too long.
* * *
Early in the morning I dressed in dacron slacks and an
Egyptian-cotton sports shirt and left the house bareheaded.
I had some breakfast in town and drove over to the store.
When Otis came in, I said, “Think I’ll be out this
afternoon. There are a couple of good prospects down in
Exeter who could use a fresh sales wheeze, and I want to
talk to the advertising manager of the radio station about
those spot announcements he’s trying to sell us.”
“Fine,” he said. “Maybe you could work up a good
singing commercial. Let’s see . . . How about Outboard
motors, for happy boaters?”
“You’re a hell of an advertising man,” I said. “You forgot
the sponsor’s name. Look. Bring your signorina to
Godwin’s marina—”
“Tell me when to cry.”
“Shut up. —She’ll give her all in a Godwin yawl—”
Girl Out Back— 98
“That’s a sailboat.”
“Well, that’s what we’re talking about, Abbott. Boat
sales. Yuk, yuk, yuk. You had enough?”
“You win,” he said. “I’d rather work.”
He went back to the shop.
Business was slow, and it was a long morning. I was
impatient and nervous now, wanting to get started. Around
eleven the telephone rang while I was in the office. Otis
was up front, so he answered it.
“For you, boss,” he called.
I went out. He gave me a quizzical glance as he handed
me the instrument, but said nothing. He turned and walked
away, rather pointedly, I thought.
It was Jewel Nunn. If she kept calling here I was going to
have to stay nearer the phone.
“How are you?” I asked. “I was thinking of you.”
Why? I asked myself. What the devil was I supposed to be
selling now?
“I just wanted to thank you for the bottle of perfume,”
she said softly.
“Where are you?” I asked, knowing very well where she
was.
“At Hampstead, at the drug store. I had to come in to do
some errands. . . .”
I thought of a good out first, and then said, “Well, listen,
can’t I drive down?”
“I don’t think you’d better. . . .”
“It would only take a minute.”
We-ell—I mean, do you think . . . No. No, you just can t.”
“But I want to see you. . .” I broke off, and then said,
“Wait, how long will you be there?”
“Just a little while. I have to go to Exeter.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointed. “I have to see this prospect at
twelve. Man I’ve been trying to get hold of for a month. But
maybe. . . .”
“No. I mean, I just wanted to thank you.”
“It was nothing. You deserve much nicer things than
that.”
Girl Out Back— 99
“Good-bye,” she said. She hung up.
Otis went to lunch early, and while he was gone I put an
empty two-gallon fuel can in the back of the station wagon,
under the blankets, checking at the same time to be sure I
had a wrench. When he returned I gathered up the
briefcase containing the boat literature and started out.
“Hold it down,” I said. “I probably won’t be back till after
closing time.”
I drove fast, going down to Hampstead and cutting
across to State 41, and was in Exeter in less than an hour. I
knew she was ahead of me, going to the same place, and
hoped I didn’t run into her. I parked in the square and
made my calls, getting them out of the way as rapidly as
possible. One of the prospects, an attorney, was out of
town, but I left some brochures with his secretary. The
other was a minor bank official, and busy, so I cut the pitch
to five minutes, and went to see the huckster.
We kicked the spot commercial around for about twenty
minutes, and I told him I’d have to take it home and
incubate a few days before I finalized. He was an earnest
young type fresh out of school, and while he was
translating me into English I left. Just as I was getting into
the car I saw her going along the street with some bundles
in her arm. She looked very nice and erect and young. She
didn’t see me.
I drove on out of town. It was twenty minutes after two
on a hot August afternoon. If everything went well, I was
going to make over a hundred thousand dollars in the next
four hours.
Girl Out Back— 100
Ten
I turned off 41 into the short access road, hoping anxiously
there wouldn’t be any fishermen down there today. The
chances of it were slight, however, since it was Monday.
When I came around the last turn in the twisting pair of
ruts and saw the camp-ground and snatches of the sheetmetal
glare of the water through the trees I breathed softly
in relief. It was as deserted and silent as the upper reaches
of the Orinoco.
I got out and surveyed a route through the timber and
then backed the station wagon over it until I was a good
hundred yards from the road. Taking the wrench and the
two-gallon can, I crawled under the back and removed the
drain-plug at the bottom of the gasoline tank. I filled the
can and then let the rest run out and soak into the ground.
When the tank was completely dry, I replaced the drainplug
and poured about a quart back into it from the can. If
the car would start at all, the fuel pump should be able to
pick up enough to run it for possibly a mile, and perhaps
almost to the highway.
Capping the can tightly, I carried it a short distance
away and hid it in some underbrush, noting the location
carefully so I could find it again, in the dark if I had to. I
got back in the seat and pressed the starter. The engine
took hold promptly. I drove back to the road and parked
just off it, facing toward the highway and far enough back
Girl Out Back— 101
from the camp-ground to be out of sight of anyone going
past in a boat.
Lifting out the suitcase, I stripped down to my shorts and
changed clothes. I carefully knotted the blue tie, using the
rear-view mirror to check the result. I put on the hat, slid
into the jacket of the suit, and ripped open the envelope
containing my credentials and the warrant. After stowing
these in the pockets of the jacket, I put my old slacks and
sports shirt in the suitcase and stowed it away again, under
the blankets. Removing the registration holder from the
steering wheel shaft, I hid it nearby in some bushes. It
probably wasn’t necessary, but there was no use taking
chances. There was nothing in the car that would identify
me. I checked to be sure I still had the spare ignition key I
always carried in my wallet, locked the station wagon, and
dropped the leather key case in my pocket. I was as ready
as I was ever going to be. Lean, unrelenting, deadly,
Special Agent G. U. Ward was on the job with the look of
far distances in his eyes. No, the look of eagles, I thought.
Far distances you had in Westerns. I wondered if this
interlude of goofiness meant I was nervous. No. I was all
right. There was nothing to it; the whole thing was
ridiculously easy.
I cut out across the bottom, taking my time. There wasn’t
much chance he’d be out on the lake this early, and I had
to get inside the cabin as the first move. When I reached a
point in the edge of the timber where I could see the cove,
I saw his boat was there. He was nowhere in sight.
Probably taking a nap, I thought.
I waited, remaining well back from the clearing. Threequarters
of an hour went by. Shortly after four-fifteen he
came out the door and went down to the boat. He had on
his straw sombrero and gun-belt and holster, and was
carrying a spinning rod. He cranked the motor and went
straight across to the edge of the bed of pads on the other
side of the waterway. I circled the edge of the clearing and
came up directly behind the cabin. When I looked around
the corner I could see him through an opening in the trees
at the edge of the water, but he was almost two hundred
yards away and intent on his casting. There was little
chance he would see me. I slipped around the corner and
entered.
Girl Out Back— 102
The reading glasses were on top of the chest of drawers.
As I picked them up I noticed they’d had a minor repair job
since I’d seen them last. A narrow strip of white tape was
stuck to the outer edge of the right lens, apparently to hold
it in the frame. A disquieting thought struck me; maybe he
had discovered the spare set was missing. Presumably he
had jarred these somehow and loosened that lens; wouldn’t
that cause him to dig out the other pair?
I whirled and lifted the magazines off the trunk and
opened it. There were no glasses in it. I closed it and
hurriedly rifled the drawers in the chest, and then started
making a quick but thorough search of the entire cabin.
Half-way through this, I was struck with the absurdity of it.
What difference did it make if he had discovered they were
gone;
He couldn’t possibly have replaced them in this length of
time. And he was here, wasn’t he? This was the reason I’d
sabotaged the spares rather than the set he was using—to
head off any possibility he might be in town replacing them
when I came back. Everything was right according to plan.
I replaced my divots and returned to the pair on the chest
of drawers.
Picking them up, I held them against the palm of my left
hand while I hit each of the lenses a smart rap with the
back of my knife. They cracked all the way through, but did
not shatter. I replaced them carefully, turning them a little
so they would be in profile to anyone on the other side of
the room or near the door.
Now to set the stage. I stepped to the door and looked
out. He was only partly visible through the screen of
foliage. I went back to the shed, squatted under the bench,
and lifted down the cereal carton. The two packages of
tens were still in it. Hurrying back to his garbage dump, I
gathered up the bits of hardware from the burned suitcase.
I took everything into the cabin. Clearing the kitchen table
of its accumulation of syrup-smeared dirty dishes, I moved
it slightly toward the center of the room and put a chair
beside it.
I set the pieces of blackened hardware on the table,
spread out a little as if I had been examining them, and
lifted the money from the carton. One package of the tens I
Girl Out Back— 103
left in its paper binder, but the other, which had the stain
along the edge, I opened, preserving the band intact, and
scattered loosely on the surface. I stood back and surveyed
it. It made quite an impressive picture. There was nothing
to do now but wait. I located a dirty plate to use for an ashtray,
lit a cigarette and sat down. I hoped he didn’t fish too
long. Now that everything was ready, I wanted to get on
with it; inactivity was going to make me nervous.
In about twenty minutes I heard the motor start. But he
was only moving to a new location further along the weed
bed. I cursed impatiently. Another fifteen minutes dragged
by. The motor started again, and this time when I looked
out I saw him headed in toward the cove. All right, I
thought; here we go. Make it good, pal.
I stepped out the door and went around to the side of the
cabin. I heard him cut the motor to glide into the cove, and
then in a minute his footsteps as he came up the path
toward the cabin. I let him draw nearer. There seemed only
a remote chance he’d be silly enough to try to shoot me
with that gun, but I wanted to be near enough to stop him
in the event of that being an unwarranted assumption on
my part. He was very near the door now. I stepped around
the corner right in front of him.
“Mr. Cliffords?” I asked. “Mr. Walter E. Cliffords?”
He stopped short, holding the spinning rod in one hand
and a very large bass on a stringer in the other. The
guileless blue eyes went round with amazement. He looked
like a startled baby.
“What’s that?” he asked blankly.
“Are you Mr. Cliffords?” I repeated.
“Sure,” he said, recovering a little. He frowned at me as
if I were a trifle dense. Who else would he be? “I’m the
only one that lives here,” he explained. “What you want?”
I took one more step forward and brought the black
identification folder out of the pocket of my jacket.
“My name’s Ward,” I said, flipping it open briefly before
bis face and then closing it again. “Federal Bureau of
Investigation. You’re under arrest, Mr. Cliffords.”
”Arrest?” The baby eyes went even rounder.
Girl Out Back— 104
His mouth fell open and he dropped the rod and the fish
to the ground. I tensed up, but he was only shoving his
hands into the air. He held them stiffly at arms’ length
above his head.
This seemed a trifle on the dramatic side, but it was all
right with me. Then, so suddenly he took me by surprise,
he moved. He took a step backward, turned to face the wall
of the cabin, and tilted himself forward and off balance
until he was supported by bis outstretched hands against
the planks.
“What . . . ?” I said.
Then I got it. You always did that with dangerous
criminals. It immobilized them while you lifted their
arsenals. I unbuckled bis gunbelt, caught it as it dropped,
transferred the .38 to my pocket, and tossed the belt itself
inside the door. They didn’t do it any better on Dragnet. He
still made no move to straighten up, and I was about to
order him to when I caught myself just in time.
It was his arrest, by God, and he wanted it to be carried
out in the approved manner. I still hadn’t frisked him for a
hidden gun. I stooped and ran my hands up both sides of
his legs, one at a time, and then up his body and under his
arms.
“All right,” I said curtly.
He straightened and turned to face me. The round pixie
face was filled with the wonder of a child beholding old
faithful for the first time “A G-man,” he said in awe. “The
F.B.I. What you know about that?”
I took the folded mortgage form from my breast pocket
and held it out to him. “This is the Federal warrant for your
arrest.”
He accepted it gingerly, as if it might explode.
Then he unfolded it and stared blankly. “I can’t read
nothing without my specs,” he said. “They’re inside.”
I nodded toward the door. “All right. Let’s go in.”
I was right behind him. At the first step he took to the
left, toward the chest, I snapped crisply, “Never mind! Stay
away from those drawers. Stand right there in the center
of the room.”
“Yessir,” he said.
Girl Out Back— 105
“Where are they?” I asked. “I’ll get them.”
“On top of that dresser.”
“All right,” I said. “Don’t move from there.” I stepped
over to the chest, turning my head to look back at him as I
picked up the glasses. They slipped from my fingers. I
made a desperate stab at them with the other hand to
catch them before they could hit the floor, and batted them
against the wall. The lenses shattered.
“Damn it!” I said. I turned and faced him apologetically,
“I’m sorry as the devil, Mr. Cliffords. We’ll get you another
pair.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” he said.
I waited for him to mention the other pair in the trunk.
When we didn’t find them, of course, I’d jump right down
his throat for stalling, and divert his attention from a fact
that could look quite fishy if he had the intelligence to
grasp it. However, he said nothing about them. I glanced at
him. He had taken the bait. He’d turned his head and was
staring at the evidence on the kitchen table.
He shook his head resignedly. “I should have knowed,”
he said. “I should have knowed I’d never get away with it.”
I was in. It was as easy as that.
I stepped over and gently lifted the warrant from his
nerveless fingers, returning it to my pocket. “You’d better
sit down,” I said, not unkindly.
He collapsed into the chair beside the table. When he
took his eyes off the money and looked up at me, however,
I was puzzled by the expression on his face. Instead of the
blank despair I had expected, there was something odd in
it. Dumb admiration was as near as I could come to it.
“How did you ever find it out?” he asked.
“Never mind,” I said. “We’ll get to that in a minute. Right
now it’s my duty to warn you that anything you say can be
used against you. You’ve got yourself in a bad jam, Mr.
Cliffords.”
“Will there be reporters”” he asked. “You reckon they’ll
take my picture and print it in the papers?”
He reminded me of a child hoping to be taken on a
picnic.
Girl Out Back— 106
“I don’t think you realize the mess you’re in,” I said,
frowning.
“Oh?” he said. “What you reckon they’ll charge me
with?”
I fired up a cigarette, closed the lighter, and returned it
to my pocket, letting him wait. I had to scare him now, and
scare him badly.
“Not nothing real serious?” he suggested. “After all, all I
done was find it. . . .”
I exhaled smoke and stared at him for a long minute.
“I’m afraid you’re not very familiar with the law, Mr.
Cliffords. A man was killed in that hold-up, as you know.
That, of course, is the equivalent of first-degree murder.”
“But, look, Mr. Ward . . . I didn’t have nothing to do with
that.”
“Unfortunately,” I went on sternly, “that’s not quite the
case. The minute you took that money for yourself and
failed to report it to us, you made yourself an accessory.
Under the law, you’re guilty right along with Haig.
However, even if the Federal charge was reduced to
obstructing justice or compounding a felony, there’s still
the matter of prior jurisdiction. . . .”
I wasn’t sure as to the accuracy of all this legal
gobbledegook, but it didn’t matter. He would know even
less about it. And it was working. He leaned forward,
staring at me.
“The State may want to hold you on a charge of murder,”
I went on. “That would take precedence, of course.”
“Murder?”
I nodded. “We can’t be sure, of course, until we exhume
the body, but the local District Attorney is interested. He
feels there is a good chance Haig was still alive when you
found him, and that you killed him for the money. . . .”
Cliffords broke in. “But he wasn’t, Mr .Ward. He was
dead, I tell you. He’d been dead for days. That’s how come
I happened to find him; it was all them birds.”
I had a hunch he was telling the truth, but the thing now
was to keep him guessing and scared.
Girl Out Back— 107
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “When the body is exhumed,
they may be able to tell. Just what you’ll be tried for is
none of my business, anyway. I’m here merely to bring you
in. And, of course, to recover the money.”
“Oh, I’ll show you where it is,” he said eagerly. “Will that
help? I mean . . .”
“I can make no deals,” I said, being stern about it. “Of
course, obviously it won’t hurt your case any, especially if
you haven’t spent too much of it.”
“Oh, I hardly spent any at all.” Then his face fell. “But I
did burn all them bonds and things, when I burned the
satchel.”
He’d merely saved me the trouble of doing it myself, but
I shook my head gravely. “That’s not so good,” I said.
“Don’t you see that establishes willful intent?”
A couple more hours of this, I thought, and I should be
able to pass the bar exam.
He sighed. “I’m sure sorry, Mr. Ward.”
I shook my head sympathetically. “I am, too, in a way, in
spite of all the trouble you caused us. I mean, you weren’t
a criminal—at least, up until now. And at your age—well,
even ten years. . . .”
“Ten years?” he repeated slowly. I had him going now.
“Forget I said that,” I told him quickly. “I shouldn’t have.
I mean, I’m not a judge. I’m an arresting officer. But tell
me, what in the name of Heaven did you do it for? You
didn’t spend much of it, you say. What did you want with
it?”
He looked down at his hands. “Well, sir, it’s kind of a silly
thing, I reckon. It got hold of me when I seen how much
there was and when I got to thinking about it afterward. If
I pretended like it was mine long enough, and nobody
come along to take it away from me, I could mebbe take
and do this thing I been thinking about all my life. One of
them sort of things you know you ain’t ever going to do,
but you just keep thinking about anyway.”
“What’s that?” I asked. We were wasting time, but it
interested me.
“I wanted to buy a coconut farm,” he said simply.
Girl Out Back— 108
“Coconut. . .?” I stared at him, and then I saw the dream.
It was all over the round, lost, wistful face—the face of the
world’s eternal patsy. He was like a child thinking about
Christmas morning.
“On one of them islands,” he went on softly, not even
looking at me. “Down south, you know. Just a one-island
farm, but I would own the whole island and every single,
blessed thing on it. I’d live on it, in a big house on top of a
hill, and there’d be all these niggers. I’d wear boots, and
one of them explorer’s hats, and I’d be good to ‘em. You
know, things like doctoring them when they was sick, and
holding trials when one of ‘em stole something from
another one.
“There wouldn’t be any other white people except this
store-keeper that I didn’t like and that I’d make him jump
like Billy-be-damned when I said something to him, and
then of course the straw-boss and his wife. The straw-boss,
you understand, is the one that handles the niggers and
that I give the orders to, and his wife would look just like
Laura LaPlante. . . .”
He broke off, his face a picture of dreamy rapture. “You
remember Laura LaPlante?
He had sixteen years on me. I shook my head. “No. But I
know who you mean. nothing changes but the name.”
“Anyway,” he went on, not even hearing me, “this strawboss’s
wife would look exactly like her, and when he was
off at the other end of the island seeing to the coconut
trees and telling the niggers what to do she’d come in and
sleep with me because she thought about me all the time,
day and night. He’d know about it, of course, but there
wasn’t anything he could do because I paid him so much he
didn’t want to lose the job. . . .”
He sighed and shook his head. I wondered if it had ever
occurred to him he could have shortened the dream
considerably and got into the sack with her a lot faster by
marrying the LaPlante type himself and by-passing the
overseer. But maybe that wouldn’t work.
“Well, cheer up,” I said. “You might have got tired of her,
and think of what a hell of a place that would have been to
try to dodge a woman. Now, let’s go get it.”
Girl Out Back— 109
“Sure,” he replied. “But first, would you tell me how you
fellers found out I had it.”
“It wasn’t easy,” I said. “It took us a year and a half. And
there’s a chance we never would have if you hadn’t spent
some of the money we recognized. . .
“Them twenty-dollar bills,” he said. “I knowed it. I
knowed it.”
You just knowed it too late, Bwana Sahib. “Why did you
spend them, then?”
“I didn’t stop to think till I’d already passed three of ‘em.
Then I noticed the numbers all run in order. So you traced
em?
I shook my head. “No. We never did find out who spent
them originally, but we did know they came from this area.
So we went back to the other angle we were working on.
Haig got away from that wreck, all right, and away from
Sanport—we knew that. Nobody in Sanport would have
hidden him; he was too hot. So the chances were that
before the police arrived, he forced his way into a car that
was passing and put a gun on the driver. That happens
quite often. But the thing we never could understand was
why the driver didn’t report it afterward. Even if Haig had
killed him and stolen the car, the whole thing would have
come out eventually. The car would have been found, or
some friend or relative of the driver would have reported
him missing. That was the thing that threw us, you see.
Simply that the driver would have reported it if he were
alive, or somebody would have reported the driver’s
absence if he’d just disappeared.
“It took us a long time to see the answer, but we finally
did, just about the time your twenty dollar-bill showed up.
Suppose the driver died before he could tell us, all right,
but in a perfectly routine manner that wasn’t suspicious at
all? Routine, at least, in police work.
“We checked the Highway Patrol reports for that day,
and we found it. Six hours and twenty minutes after Haig
disappeared out his getaway car when it hit that truck, an
elderly couple in a 1950 Plymouth sedan went off the road
two miles from here just after dark in a downpour of rain
and were instantly killed. They were on the wrong road,
and they were driving faster than they normally did, even
Girl Out Back— 110
in good visibility on dry pavement. Haig, you see? He was
in the car. He’d forced them to hide out somewhere until
after dark.
“He was probably hurt, and maybe punchy with shock, so
he didn’t know where he was going. The only thing he was
sure of was that he had to stay off the highway. He could
have left a trail of blood, but it washed right away. It was
raining, you see. And when they picked up the old people,
there was nothing in the car to indicate he’d ever been
with them.
“It was easy from there. We just came out here, among
other places, and searched your camp. We found what was
left of his suitcase, and the rest of those twenties, plus
those tens.”
When I finished, Cliffords didn’t say anything for a
moment. He merely sighed and looked at me with that awe
in his face. Then, finally, he said, “And I thought I could get
away with it.”
“All right,” I said. I was tired of wasting time. “You ready
to show me where it is?”
He stood up. “Sure,” he said. “There’s three more
thousand of it under the house, on a sill. Unless you found
that, too.”
That was wonderful, I thought swiftly. Add that to nearly
a thousand there on the table. It was going to work out
beautifully.
“And the rest of it?” I asked.
“Buried in three syrup buckets, under a down tree. About
a mile up the lake.”
“How much?” I asked. “Do you know?”
He nodded. “I added up the little bands. It took me a long
time. There’s a hundred and thirteen thousand of it.”
And it was so ridiculously easy. All I’d had to do was ask
for it.
“Umh-umh,” I said thoughtfully. “That checks out pretty
well with the bank’s figures. Well, let’s get on with it.”
Girl Out Back— 111
Eleven
We picked up that under the house. It had been almost
directly over my head when I’d peered under that other
time, but I’d been looking for something much larger. It
was all in tens, five hundred dollars to the bundle, wrapped
in waxed paper and lying flat on top of the sill. We brought
it inside and he watched while I gathered up and counted
what was on the kitchen table.
“Altogether, three thousand eight hundred and forty,” I
announced.
He found a paper bag for it. I put it all inside, folded it
over carefully, and sealed it with some cellophane tape he
had. I wrote the sum on it, and then the notation,
“Recovered in vicinity of cabin.” He watched intently, very
much impressed with all this police routine.
“We’ll have to come back by here so you can pack the
clothes you want to take to jail with you,” I said. “So
there’s no use carrying this around. We’ll pick it up on the
way back. Let’s see. . . .”
I pulled a stack of magazines and comic books away from
the wall and shoved the money behind it.
“Should be safe there,” I said.
He nodded. “Sure. Nobody ever comes here.”
“You say it’s about a mile?” I asked.
“Pretty near, I reckon.”
Girl Out Back— 112
“I don’t see any sense wearing this hot jacket up there.” I
said. I slipped it off. Removing his .38 from the pocket, I
shoved it in the waistband of my trousers. Then I removed
the fake warrant from the inside breast pocket, and when I
slid it into the right hip pocket of my trousers I eased out
the leather key case that was already there, holding it
concealed in my hand for an instant while I was folding the
jacket. I let it drop just as I tossed the jacket across the
bed and turned toward the door.
He called my attention to it. “Say, Mr. Ward, your keys
fell out.”
“Oh.” I picked them up. “Thanks. Wouldn’t do to lose
them. We d be stranded.”
“Your car’s down at the camp-ground, I reckon?”
“That’s right,” I said. I picked up the jacket again,
dropped the keys in one of the pockets, and tossed it back
on the bed. We went out. He picked up a short-handled
shovel.
It was late afternoon now, and shadows were long across
the clearing. We started out through the timber with
Cliffords leading the way, going generally north but
angling gradually way from the lake.
“Is Haig up this way, too?” I asked.
“No, sir.” He pointed off to the right. “Up there. Not too
far from that road, and about a mile this side of the
highway.”
“Well, we won’t bother with him today,” I said. “We’ll
bring you out tomorrow or the next day and you can show
us where. The local District Attorney wants to be
represented, anyway, and there’s the coroner.”
“What could they tell now?” he asked, plodding
purposefully ahead and not looking around. “I mean, it’s
been a year and a half.”
“Probably not much,” I replied. “Of course, if you had
shot him and the bullet struck a bone. . . . That would show
up, naturally.”
“But I didn’t shoot him, Mr. Ward! I’m telling you the
truth about the whole thing. I was out huntin’ squirrels and
I seen all them birds circlin’ around. . . .”
Girl Out Back— 113
“We’d assume it was that way,” I said. “Had they
bothered him?”
“No. They was just beginning to light in the trees—
“Then you could form a pretty good idea as to what did kill
him?”
“Sure. He’d been in a bad wreck, and he’d bled to death.
Anybody could see that. I wondered how he’d ever made it
that far from the highway. He was pretty well banged up
all over, but the worst was the cut on his right arm.”
“And the suitcase was near him?”
“His head and shoulders was lying on it, and he still had
his hand through the handle. Like he was trying to get up
with it.”
I had a momentary flash of what it was probably like,
bleeding to death at night in the rain, and wondered as to
the nature of Haig’s particular coconut farm, but gave it
up. There was never much profit in that type of
speculation, and the ivory tower boys could handle it
without help.
“Well, it’s too bad,” I said. “And it’s hard to understand
why you did it. As far as we’ve been able to determine,
you’ve never been in trouble before.”
“No, sir. I worked all my life. Section hand for the S.P.”
“You’ve never been in prison at all, have you?”
“No, sir.”
Plodding on ahead of me through the timber in that big
hat, he reminded me of some rotund and ineffably earnest
gnome who’d just been handed an important assignment
by the Fairy Princess.
“Don’t let it get you down,” I said. “You’ll make out all
right.”
“Is it very bad?” he asked.
“We-ell,” I said thoughtfully, keeping one pace behind
him, “naturally, it’s not any fun. It’s not supposed to be.
But plenty of people come through it in fine shape.”
He said nothing.
“There’s been too much written and said about it by
people who don’t know what they’re talking about,” I went
on. “They distort the picture. They over-emphasize things
Girl Out Back— 114
that really aren’t too bad, and play down others that are
worse. It’s not so much the bad food and the monotony and
the overcrowding they talk about all the time, as it is other
things they minimize and try to hush up. The homosexuals,
for instance. They make it bad for everybody.”
”They . . . they do?”
“Yes. In this way. You have to watch out for them
continually. They’re after you all the time, and the only
effective way to discourage them is to fight. But fighting is
against the rules, so you lose your privileges. The warden’s
staff is too badly overworked and short-handed to hold a
two-day hearing to determine who was at fault in a brawl.
They merely penalize both parties and let it go. And if you
get a reputation for being a trouble-maker you get the
guards down on you, too. But don’t let it throw you. You’ll
come through it all right.”
He made no reply. We changed direction a little to circle
the end of a slough that still had water in it.
“How do you find your way around down here?” I asked.
“I’d be lost in five minutes.”
“Oh, there ain’t nothin’ to it,” he replied. “You just
remember which way you’re goin’ all the time.”
“It sounds easy,” I said. “But I’d probably be two days
trying to find my way back to the cabin.”
“We’re nearly there,” he said. “You see the roots of that
down tree, up ahead?”
I saw it. It was less than a hundred yards ahead in a
heavy stand of oaks. One of them had fallen, apparently
several years ago, carrying down a smaller one with it and
creating a tangle of broken limbs and brush at the top. We
hurried up. It would be sunset in about an hour, I thought,
appraising the flat angle of the shafts of sunlight slanting
down through the foliage overhead.
“It’s under this big one,” Cliffords said. He walked up
alongside the bole of it to the first limb. I watched him,
trying not to show my excitement. The trunk was about six
inches off the ground here, supported by the welter of
broken limbs beyond, and the ground was covered with a
heavy carpet of old leaves.
Girl Out Back— 115
He raked the leaves back, under the overhang of the
round trunk, and I could see the depression where the
earth had settled. He dropped to his knees and began
scraping the dirt away with the edge of the shovel. I heard
it strike metal. I leaned over his shoulder, staring down
intently.
“I dug it up about five months ago and put it in new
buckets,” he said. “They rust out pretty fast.”
He threw the shovel aside and started scooping the earth
out with his hands. I could see them now, all three of them.
They were buried in a row, vertically, with the bottoms up.
He tugged at the first one, rocking it back and forth to free
it from the ground. I dropped to my knees and did the
same with the one on the other end. His came free, and
then mine. He lifted out the middle one, which was free
now that the others were removed. They lay side by side on
the old leaves in a shaft of sunlight. They had brownish
splotches of rust on them and were encrusted with the
damp black sod in which they had lain, but to me they were
more beautiful than three Grecian urns. I lit a cigarette,
suddenly conscious that my shirt was stuck to me with
perspiration, and knelt there just staring at them and
savoring the tremendous exultation of the moment.
They were the standard one-gallon pails used in that part
of the country for storing syrup, the same as the ones I’d
seen in his cabin. Each had a wire handle and a tight,
press-fit lid of the same diameter as the pad. I saw that
after he had pressed on the lids he had dipped the tops in
melted paraffin. Not bad, I thought; if he’d known about
silica-gel dehydrators he could have eliminated rust
altogether on the inside.
“You want to open ’em?” he asked.
I nodded. “Just one.”
I set one of them upright between us. He took out his
knife, scraped away some of the paraffin, and used the
back of the blade to pry up the lid. It came free at last and
fell to the ground. I looked inside, and for an instant I was
almost afraid he’d hear the pounding of my heart. There
was only one way to describe it, I thought; it was a gallon
of money.
Girl Out Back— 116
It was full. It was jammed with packages of fives, tens,
twenties, and fifties. They were laid in flat, they were bent
to fit the curve of the pail, they were doubled, they were
put in every way imaginable to take advantage of every bit
of space. Tens were jammed against fifties, and when I
lifted a package of fives, there was a sheaf of hundreds
under it. I tossed it back in. I didn’t want him to see the
trembling of my hands.
“She sure is a pile of money, ain’t she?” he said.
It was time to get rid of him. I ground out the cigarette
and nodded. “All right. You can put the lid back on. We’d
better get going.”
The steep-sided hole they had come from was just behind
me and slightly to the right. He was bent over the pail,
pressing down the lid. I shot a quick glance behind me and
stood up. I stepped backward and when I felt the edge of
the hole under my foot I let it slide on in.
“Damn ... !” I cursed explosively, waved my arms, and
fell. My shoulder hit the log and I rolled off it to the
ground.