Hell Hath No Fury by Charles Williams 1953(3)

The smart thing was to get out of here and let her
happen to somebody else.
But I had to wait, unless I wanted to give up the
idea which was going around in my mind. It would
take at least a month. No, it would take longer,
because you couldn’t just come in here, pull off
something like that, and then run. It would put the
finger on you. I looked at the building again. It was
perfect for what I wanted—unoccupied, and not too
near any of the few inhabited shacks along the
street. The only hitch was that I had to get into it
and out again without being seen, when the time
came, and now the moon was working against me. I
couldn’t take a chance on it until it started to wane,
unless we happened to get an overcast or a rainy
night. There were two or three shacks on the
opposite side of the cross street which had a view of
the side of the building, and you could never tell
when somebody might be awake and looking out
from one of them.



I went on back to the rooming house and lay
Hell Hath No Fury — 43
awake a long time still thinking about it. Sometime
before I dropped off I got to wondering what was on
that street next to the bank, the one the side door
opened on to. I had been right there on the corner a
couple of times, but I couldn’t remember. If there
were a store on the opposite side with a door or
show windows facing the side of the bank it would
be too dangerous. That was something I had to find
out before I could even consider it, but it could wait
until morning.
The next day was Sunday. I awoke around ten with
a hang-over and feeling as if I’d been beaten up in a
fight, listless and only half alive. I went downtown
for some orange juice and coffee, bought a paper at
the drugstore, and then walked slowly around the
whole block the bank was on.
It was all right. In fact, it was very good. The cross
street was blind as far as seeing the side door of the
bank was concerned. There was a store across there,
all right, but it faced only on Main and this side was
a blank brick wall. I went on around, as if out for an
aimless Sunday morning stroll. Directly behind the
bank there was an alley cutting all the way through
the block, and where it came out into the next street
the only business establishments again faced on
Main. All right, I thought; so far, so good.
Tuesday, when the draft had gone through, I went
back to the bank and cashed a check for fifty dollars.
While I was inside I looked it over again, very
thoroughly. There were four men at work, one in
each of the two cages, an officer of some kind at the
railed-in desk, and a book-keeper busy over the
tabulating machines. They were all young or in early
middle age except the Mr. Chips type I’d talked to
before. He would be the one who’d always get left
there because he was too old and frail to belong to
the volunteer fire department. The door at the rear
was partly open this time and I could see it led into a
washroom, all right. And it opened inward.
I was beginning to get it all into place in my mind
now. The tough part was going to be the waiting.
Right now I had to work out the idea for the
Hell Hath No Fury — 44
machine, and I already had a pretty good idea about
that. I had to go out of town to buy the things I
needed, however. It would be too risky to do it
around here, or keep it in my room while I was
working on it. You lived in a glass bowl in a town
this small. On Thursday I told Harshaw I was going
to take the next day off to drive down to Houston
and try to collect some money a man owed me.
I hadn’t seen any more of Dolores Harshaw at all,
but Thursday afternoon I ran into Gloria Harper in
the drug store. I had gone in for a Coke at three
o’clock and she was sitting alone in a booth. She
looked up and smiled, and I went over and sat down.
“Are you doing anything tonight?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Not tonight.”
“Well, I hear they’re playing ‘The Birth of a Nation’
at the movie. Why don’t we go see it?”
“It isn’t really that bad, is it?” she asked. “But I’d
love to go.” Her smile was something to see; and I
noticed I was beginning to look for it when I was
around her.
I picked her up around seven. The picture wasn’t
too bad, but we ran out on the second feature. As we
were walking back up the street to the car she
stopped and bought a pencil from the old blind
Negro, the one who had come into the bank. He had
a little stand there on the sidewalk.
“How are you tonight, Uncle Mort?” she asked.
“Jes’ fine, Miss Gloahia,” he said. “Thank you.”
He’d recognized her by her voice. “Who is he?” I
asked as we went on and got in the car.
“Just Mort. He’s been there in that spot fifteen
hours a day six days a week since I was in rompers.
Maybe he’s been there forever,” she said.
“Did you need a pencil?”
She blushed. “Well, you can always use one.”
We drove around for a while and when I took her
home the house was dark. The Robinsons were gone
somewhere. We stood by the gate for a moment in
Hell Hath No Fury — 45
the moonlight. I was conscious of thinking she
wasn’t merely pretty; she was one of the loveliest
girls I had ever seen in my life. For a moment I was
like an awkward kid; I wanted to kiss her and I was
afraid to.
“Well, good night,” I said.
“Good night,” she said. “And thank you. I enjoyed
the picture very much.”
Well, if you’re not a silly bastard, I thought. Why
didn’t you ask her to go to the church supper?
I shoved off around ten the next morning, but I
didn’t go to Houston. I drove over to a fair-sized
town about a hundred miles away, a place I’d never
been before. I got a room at a tourist court and then
went shopping.

At a drugstore I picked up a hand-wound alarm
clock. Then I bought two rolls of surgical cotton at
another one, and went around to two or three fiveand-
ten-cent stores for the rest. I got a cheap
soldering-iron, a little solder, a pair of pliers, a short
piece of heavy copper wire, and some big sheets of
00 sandpaper. I mentally checked it off the list. That
was about all except some thread and a small
flashlight. After I bought those I dropped into a
market and bought a carton of canned beer and a
box of big kitchen matches and got the clerk to give
me a cardboard box about a foot wide and eighteen
inches long. I went back to the motel, put the beer in
the little refrigerator to keep cold, drew the blinds,
and went to work on the clock.
I took the bell cover off, exposing the clapper or
striker. After plugging in the soldering-iron, I cut off
two pieces of the copper wire just a little shorter
than the thickness of the clock from front to back.
When the iron was hot enough, I soldered them side
by side on top of the clapper, putting on lots of
solder and making it as rigid as I could. Then I
wound the clock, set the alarm, and tried it out. The
wire cross-arm vibrated nicely and held together all
right.
Going out to the kitchenette, I opened a can of
Hell Hath No Fury — 46
beer and came back to look at what I’d done so far.
I’d know in a few minutes whether I could depend on
it or not. I took a drink of the beer, lighted a
cigarette, and went on with the job. First, I wrapped
a sheet of sandpaper around each of the two rolls of
cotton and made it fast with some of the thread.
Then I took four of the big kitchen matches, laid
them together with two pointing each way and
overlapping a little in the center, and placed them
on the cross-arm I’d soldered on to the bell clapper.
I secured them with several turns of the thread,
letting them stick out about a half inch over the
clock in front and back. After winding and setting
the alarm, I placed the clock upright in the bottom of
the box the market clerk had given me, and put in
the two sandpaper covered rolls, one on each side. It
didn’t fit right; the rolls were too large and tended to
bind the clapper cross-arm so it couldn’t move
freely. It had to have just the right amount of
tension; that was the reason I’d used cotton to back
up the sandpaper instead of something solid. A block
of wood or something like that would do if you got
the spacing absolutely correct to within a sixtyfourth
of an inch or so, but if you didn’t the matches
might not touch at all or it might be too close and
bind.
I took out the rolls of cotton, pulled some of it off,
and re-wrapped them with the sandpaper. This time
it was just right. The match heads pressed with just
the right tension against the slightly yielding wall of
sandpaper. Good, I thought. I took another drink of
beer and sat back to wait. In a minute there was a
click and the alarm went off, the cross-arm vibrating
wildly. The match heads whirred against the
sandpaper and all four of them burst into flame.
I tried it twelve times, and it never failed once. I
took off the burnt matches for the last time and sat
back with my beer to look at it. And that was when it
really came home to me what I was about to do. I
was going to rob a bank, committing the additional
crime of arson in the process, and if I got caught I’d
go to prison.
Hell Hath No Fury — 47
Well, I thought, go on selling second-hand jalopies
for another forty years and maybe somebody’ll give
you a testimonial and a forty-dollar watch.
Hell Hath No Fury — 48
6
When I got back I left the whole thing in the trunk of
the car. If I took it into my room the nosy old girl
who ran the place would probably be in it the first
time she cleaned, and it was crazy enough to start
her wondering. I already had a blanket in the car, an
old one which had been in it when I bought it eight
months ago. That was safe enough; nobody would
ever trace it. I still had to have a piece of line,
though, and I didn’t want to buy it because
something like that was too easy for a clerk to
remember. If I kept my eyes open I should find a
short length around somewhere.
I checked right in at the lot when I got to town and
didn’t go out to the rooming house until after work.
There were two letters for me on the hall table,
addressed in the same hand and postmarked here in
town, but with no return address on them. I sat
down on the bed and tore them open.
“Dear Harry,” the first one said. “Please call me. I
miss you so and I’m sorry I acted the way I did. I
want to see you so bad. Your loving Friend.” There
was no signature. Well, at least she had that much
sense.


I spread the other one open. “Harry,” she had
scrawled, “why don’t you call me? Why? I can’t
Hell Hath No Fury — 49
stand not hearing from you. I told you I was sorry,
what more can I do? I’ve just got to see you.”
Was she crazy? I tore the letters into strips and
burned them in the ash-tray, feeling a little chill of
apprehension go over me. What would she do next?
And the next time she got plastered?
The following day was Sunday. I drove out the
highway after I’d had breakfast and turned off on to
the dirt road going towards the river bottom and the
oil well. When I got up in the pine on the sandhill
near the old abandoned farms I found a pair of ruts
leading off into the timber where I could get the car
off the road and out of sight. It was a beautiful
morning, still and hot, with the heavy scent of pine
in the air, and it was good to be out here alone and
away from town. I got out and started walking up
the hill, keeping away from the road. In a little while
I found what I was looking for, the remains of an old
pine on the ground, the sap-wood long since rotted
away and only the heart and pine knots remaining. I
didn’t have an ax, but it was easy to lay it across
another log and break off a section of the heart by
jumping on it. I looked at the end where it had
broken. It was pure pitch pine, the kind we used for
kindling when I was a boy.
I was about to start back to the car with it when I
noticed I was near the edge of the clearing where
one of the abandoned farmhouses stood. Leaving the
chunk of pine in an open place where I could find it
again, I circled the edge of the field and came up
behind the house. The doors were torn off, and there
wasn’t much in it, just dust and cobwebs and pieces
of glass here and there from the broken windows. I
walked on through to the front door and looked out.
The road was in plain sight from here, the sand
blazing white in the sun, but it was completely
deserted and I couldn’t hear any sound of a car. The
barn was off to the left of the house a short distance
across the sand and dead weeds. I went over and
looked in.
It was shadowy and cool, with a faint odor of dusty
hay and old manure. There was a loft overhead
Hell Hath No Fury — 50
which appeared to be empty, and a walled-off corn
crib in one corner, in front of the stalls and feedboxes.
I went over and looked into the crib, and
found just what I was looking for. An old horse collar
with the stuffing coming out of it was hanging from
a harness peg on the wall, and dangling from the
same peg was a piece of discarded rope plowline
possibly ten feet long. I took it in my hands and
tested it. It was very old, but plenty strong enough
for what I wanted.
I was coiling it up when I stopped suddenly and
listened. A car was approaching out there on the
road. I could hear it plainly now, the motor lugging
in the heavy sand. I shook off the sudden
nervousness and swore under my breath. I was too
jumpy. It was only Sutton, either going to town or
just now coming home from Saturday night. But the
car didn’t go on past. I heard it slowing down, and
then it was turning in. It stopped in front of the
house.
I was sweating. It wasn’t that I was doing anything
wrong, but just that I’d look suspicious and attract
attention, the very thing I didn’t want, if somebody
saw me prowling around out here. What explanation
could I give for my being here in this old barn, with
my car parked a half mile away in the timber? I
whirled, looking for a way to get out or a place to
hide. I couldn’t leave by the door. That was in plain
sight of the house. But two planks had been torn off
the rear wall, and I might be able to squeeze out
there. I started to run back to it when I noticed a
small hole in the wall next to the house. Maybe I
could find out who it was and what he was up to.
Whoever it was might leave in a minute, anyway,
without coming near the barn. I could see the house
and the car pulled up in front of it. And it wasn’t a
man getting out of the car. It was Gloria Harper.
It threw me for a minute. What would she be doing
out here? And what the devil was she unloading out
of the car and putting on the porch. It looked like a
fruit jar and a china plate, as nearly as I could tell,
and there was something else which resembled a
Hell Hath No Fury — 51
bread board. Was she going to set up housekeeping
in that broken-down shack?
She had something in her hand now which looked
like little sticks, and then I began to catch on. They
were paint brushes. It was a water color outfit she
had, and the thing I’d thought was a bread board
must be a block of paper. She had on a pair of brief
white shorts and a striped T-shirt, and the longlegged,
easy way she moved was enough to make
you catch your breath.
She got all of her equipment together and sat
down in the shade on the edge of the porch with her
feet on the steps and the block of paper on her legs,
and began sketching the barn with long strokes of a
pencil or charcoal stick. After she had it blocked in
she started mixing paints in the white plate, dipping
her brushes in the jar of water. She was completely
absorbed in what she was doing and, alone like this
and not knowing she was being watched, there was
something almost radiant about her face, somehow
sweet and infinitely appealing and still full of that
quiet dignity she had. I wanted to go out there
where she was.
Was I blowing my top? I couldn’t go out there.
How would I explain why I’d been hiding in the
barn? But wait, I thought. She’d be here for a long
time yet. I could sneak out the back of the barn and
get into the timber without her seeing me, go back
and get the car, and just happen to be driving by on
my way to the river to go swimming. That would be
plausible enough.
I had just started to turn away when somebody
beat me to it. I heard a car coming along the road,
and then I knew whoever it was had seen her there
on the porch because he slowed abruptly and turned
in. I looked back towards the house. She had put
down the brush and was watching apprehensively as
the man got out of his car. It was Sutton.
He walked over to the porch and said something I
couldn’t hear. I watched her, and it wasn’t
uneasiness alone that was in her expression; there
Hell Hath No Fury — 52
was loathing too. Knowing they wouldn’t be
watching the barn now, I moved to the front door
and peered out. I could hear them there. I waited.
“And how’s my little chum today?” he said.
“If you mean me,” she said, “I’m very well, thank
you.”
“Well, you look nice, honey. Nice outfit, too.” He
grinned and looked her up and down, taking it off as
he went. “And you sure have the legs for it, haven’t
you, baby?”
“Did you want to see me about something?” she
asked coldly.


“No. No. Just stopped for a minute to say hello. By
the way, where’s your friend this morning?”
“Which friend?”
“Big Boy, what’s his name.”
“Do you mean Mr. Madox?”
“I guess so. Anyway, the guy you came out to the
house with the other day. I saw you going to the
movies the other night, and figured you was kind of
chummy. Maybe he’s a little funny, too, huh?”
“Funny?” I could see the revulsion on her face.
“You know what I mean, baby.”
I could feel my hands digging against the door
frame. Was that what was behind that dirty joke of
his and the contemptuous grin? He couldn’t mean
anything else, the way he had said it. But to her?
Was he crazy? Or just stupid?
“Would you leave now?” she asked, her voice on
the ragged edge of going all to pieces. “Or would
you mind if I did?”
“Oh, I was just going. But you mind if I see your
picture? I’m a great art lover, myself.”
Without a word she tore it off the block and
handed it to him, as if she didn’t want him to defile
more than one sheet of paper. He took it and
pretended to study it with great seriousness, holding
it at arm’s length and nodding his head like an
instructor.
Hell Hath No Fury — 53
“Promising,” he said. “Very promising. But, honey,
don’t you think it needs a little red? To kind of
overburden the harmisfralcher?”
She said nothing. He reached down for one of the
brushes, dipped it into the plate, and smeared it
across the paper. He handed it back to her. She let it
slide to the ground. It was sickening.
I started out the door, and caught myself just in
time. What was I, a sap? He wasn’t bothering me,
was he? I was supposed to be looking out for Harry
Madox, not making a chump of myself for nothing. I
stayed where I was.
“Well, I’ll see you around, baby,” he said. He got in
his car and drove off.
She sat there for a few minutes after he left, just
staring off at nothing, and then she slowly gathered
everything up and put it in the car. When she was
out of sight down the road I walked over to the
porch. The picture was lying face up in the sand. I
picked it up. It looked fine except for the smear of
red he had drawn across it from one corner to the
other. He liked his little joke, all right.
One of these days somebody would probably kill
him. I wondered who.
* * *
Monday evening while I was putting on a fresh shirt
the landlady knocked on the door.
“Telephone, Mr. Madox.”
I went down the hall to the phone. “Hello. Madox,”
I said.
“Harry,” she said, “why didn’t you call me?”
“You think I’m crazy?”
“I want to see you, Harry.”
“Look—“
“I miss you.”
I started to tell her to go to hell and then hang up,
but I didn’t. I began to think about her. She could do
that to you, even on the phone. Maybe it was
Hell Hath No Fury — 54
because her voice matched the rest of her.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“At the drugstore. I thought I’d go to the movie,
but again I may not. I’m sort of restless—you know
how it is. So I might go for a ride.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe up the highway about five miles to where
a road turns off to the right and goes over to an old
sawmill. It’s not hard to find. Once you get on the
road you can’t get off.”
I put the phone back on the cradle. She’d said it,
all right. Once you got on the road you couldn’t get
off.
I tried to eat some dinner, but it was straw and it
choked me. I walked restlessly up the sidewalk,
going nowhere. Sutton was in front of the pool hall
with a handful of numbers from a tip board, reading
them and throwing them on the sidewalk. He nodded
and we looked at each other. I thought of what he
had said to Gloria Harper. He liked his laughs so
well, why not shag him one in the mouth and watch
him laugh his teeth out? Why not mind his own
business? He wasn’t shoving me around, was he?
And I wasn’t Gloria Harper’s mother.
I got in the car. Why try to pretend I wasn’t going
out there? Did I think I could kid myself? I found the
road without any trouble. The moon wasn’t up yet,
and it was very dark under the trees. The old
sawmill was on the side of a wooded ravine a mile or
so from the highway. I saw a dilapidated shed and a
pile of sawdust in the headlights, but there was no
other car. I cut the lights and sat there, waiting, but
I was too restless to sit still very long and got out
and walked around.
I heard the car coming then. It stopped under the
trees and the lights went off. The ceiling light came
on momentarily and I knew she had opened the door
to get out. I walked over. I could see her very faintly,
just the blur of her face and the blonde head, but she
couldn’t see me at all.
Hell Hath No Fury — 55
“Where are you?” she asked.

I didn’t answer. I stepped closer and reached out
and put my hands on her. She gasped, and turned,
her arms reaching out, groping for me. I kissed her
roughly and her arms tightened about my neck with
an urgent wild strength in them. She twisted her
face a little to one side and her mouth whispered
against my cheek, “Harry, I just had to see you.”
She was partly right, anyway. She just had to see
somebody.
* * *
We were in the car with moonlight spilling into the
other side of the ravine. “Do you love me, Harry?”
she asked.
“No,” I said.
“Well, that’s a fine answer. You might at least say
you did.”
“Why should I?”
“I just thought it might sound better that way. It
don’t make any difference, though, does it?”
“No.”
“I suppose you think I’m in love with you, don’t
you?”
“And why would I?”
“Because I’m here. Well, let me tell you—“
“You don’t have to tell me. I know why you’re here.
But you don’t think we’re going to get by with much
of this, do you?”
“Why not?”
“And you’re the one who asked me if I’d lived in a
small town.”
“It’s all right. He’s at a lodge meeting.”
“It’s dangerous as hell. You know that.”
“I notice you’re telling me that now. You didn’t say
anything about it a couple of hours ago.”
“You didn’t expect me to think then, did you?”
She laughed. “How’s about another kiss, and to
Hell Hath No Fury — 56
hell with the sermon.” She was a witch, all right. She
leaned back against me with her head in my arms
and her feet on the window, bare legs a faint gleam
in the darkness.
“Why’d you marry him?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe I was just getting scared. I’d
been married twice before and it didn’t work out,
and I was trying to make a living out of a crumby
little beauty shop and not getting any younger. I’d
known him a long time. He used to come and see me
when he was in Houston. It was a kind of a—
arrangement, I guess you’d call it. And then, after
his wife died—“ She paused for a moment, and then
went on irritably. “Oh, hell, I don’t know. He just
kept after me about it till I gave in. How’d I know it
was such a dump?”

“Well, why do you stay?” I asked.
“What’re you kicking about? You seem to be doing
all right.” She was rugged; there was no doubt of
that.
“You think you’re going to get by with this
forever?”
“Who the hell cares about forever? Forever’s when
you’re dead.”
Yeah, I thought; forever’s when you’re dead all
right, but you don’t have to rush it. She was as crazy
as frozen dynamite. I wanted to ditch her, and I
knew that as long as I was around this town I never
could, unless she got mad enough to ditch me. I’d
always come back. In the only field of activity she
cared anything about, she was terrific.
I didn’t see her for a couple of days, and then on
Thursday night I was too busy to think about her. It
was the cloudy night I’d been waiting for.
Hell Hath No Fury — 57
7
I went to the movie and sat through a double feature
without seeing it, feeling the tension beginning.
When I came out at 11:30 it was still overcast, with
thunder growling far off in the west. I got in the car
and drove a long way down the highway, beyond the
river, killing time which died too slowly. It was a
little after one when I came back to town, the streets
deserted now and the only lights the all-night cafe
and a filling station on the other end of Main. I
circled through back streets and stopped under
some trees by a vacant lot a block away from the
Taylor building.
I cut the ignition and lights and sat there in the car
for ten minutes. Nothing moved. The one-man police
force would be drinking coffee and kidding the
waitress under the fluorescent lights three blocks
away. There was no use waiting any longer. This was
as nearly perfect as it would ever be. I got out and
opened the trunk. Everything I’d need was in the
cardboard box except the flashlight I’d bought, and I
dropped that in my pocket.
A lone drop of rain splashed wetly in my face. It
was so dark I could see only the faintly blacker loom
of the trees against the sky. Then I could just made
Hell Hath No Fury — 58
out the square shape of the building across the
vacant lot. I was at the rear of it now. Suppose
someone had discovered the unlocked window and
fastened it again? Well, suppose they had? I couldn’t
help it now. I came around the corner and felt for
the sash.
It slid upwards. Nobody had ever noticed it. I
reached the box through and set it on the floor of the
washroom, and then climbed in myself and pulled
the window down. After feeling my way out of the
little room I closed the door and sighed with relief.
So far, so good, I thought.
I went up the stairs. It was hard to breathe in the
hot, dead air up here under the roof. My footsteps
echoed through the building as I picked my way
through disordered piles of rubbish.
I set the box down against a wall and swept the
light around. Anywhere would do. This was as good
as any. I set the light in an old chair and opened the
box, lifting out the pitch pine shavings I had whittled
out that Sunday in the woods. Taking four kitchen
matches out of the box, I bound them to the wire
cross-arm as I had done before. Then I wound and
set the clock, checking it against my watch, and
wound the alarm. I set it for 12:30, and released the
catch. I was sweating profusely now. The heat was
almost unbearable.
I put the clock back in the box and eased the
sandpaper up against the match heads, checking for
just the proper tension. Then I took a folded
newspaper off a pile nearby and sliced it to shreds
with my knife, dropping the strips into the box over
and around the clock until it was full and
overflowing, dribbling dozens of matches through it
as I went. I added the pine shavings and slivers,
building it up. There would be no smell of oil or
kerosene here when they started investigating. Of
course there would be the clock, or what would be
left of it, but there were already at least three or
four of them in all this junk so it would probably
never be noticed. The solder would melt in the
intense heat and the wire cross-arm would drop off,
Hell Hath No Fury — 59
leaving it looking just like any other discarded alarm
clock except that the bell was gone. I pushed the pile
of newspapers against it on one side and set some
chairs on the other, then tore up more papers to pile
on top of the box.

I wiped the sweat off my face and stood back to
look at it in the narrow beam of the flashlight. It
would do. Once those matches caught the whole
rat’s nest would take off like gunpowder. Well, I
thought, they like to go to fires. This’ll give ‘em one
to talk about.
* * *
When I awoke the next morning it was a minute or
so before I remembered. I began to tighten up then.
When I looked at my watch I thought of that clock
ticking away the seconds and the hands creeping
slowly around and the fact that nothing could stop it
now. It was eight o’clock, and the next four hours
and a half were going to be rough. Once it was
started and I got moving I should be able to shake
the nervousness and keyed-up tension, but the
waiting was going to be bad. I had to act naturally. I
couldn’t be looking at my watch every three
minutes. It started off all right. As soon as I had a
cup of coffee and got over to the lot, Harshaw and I
got in another beef about something. God knows
that was routine and natural enough. I can’t even
remember what this one was about. It never took
much to start us off because we always reacted to
each other like a couple of strange bears. And the
funny part of it was that I had begun to have a sort
of reluctant liking for him. He was as tough as bootleather
and he barked at everybody, but you were
never in doubt as to how you stood with him. He told
you. But the fact remained the more I had to admit
he wasn’t a bad sort of joe, the more I’d go out of my
way to start a row.
“You know, Madox,” he said, leaning back in his
chair and sticking a match to the cold cigar. “I can’t
figure you out. You sell cars, but I’ll be a dirty pimp
if I know how you do it.”
Hell Hath No Fury — 60
He was right. I’d hit a lucky streak the past few
days and unloaded several of his jalopies. “Well,” I
said, “it’s sure as hell not the advertising. Why don’t
you go ahead and build a fence around the place to
keep people from finding out you’ve got cars in
here? They keep sneaking in.”
“So you sell three cars, and now you’re going to
tell me how to run the place?”
“I don’t care what you do with it,” I said, and
walked out of the office. I had to relax. At this rate
I’d blow my top before noon. A Negro boy came in
and stood around with his hands in his pockets
looking at the cars the way they always do. You get
the impression they’re waiting for some thing, but
you don’t know what—maybe for prices to come
down or cotton to go up.
Suppose I lost my head? I thought.
I went over and gave him sales talk you’d use on
an oil man looking for Cadillacs for three of his girl
friends. Or at least I think it was all right. He
seemed to like it. I didn’t hear a word I was saying.
You can take care of everything except chance.
Chance can kill you.
“How much the down payment?” he asked. That
was all they ever wanted to know. You could sell
Fords for eight thousand dollars if you’d let them go
for five dollars down.
Somehow ten o’clock came and went. I walked
over to the restaurant and had a cup of coffee. It was
hard to sit still now, or stand still, or think straight
about anything. At 11:45 Gulick went to get his
lunch. Suppose he didn’t get back in time? Harshaw
would leave anyway. It would look funny if I ran off
and left the place completely unattended. I prowled
around the lot, trying not to look at my watch. At
12:20 he came back and Harshaw left. Then it was
12:25.1 stood behind a car, looking at the watch,
waiting. It was 12:30.
And nothing happened. There was no noise, no
siren, nothing. The streets were as quiet as any
weekday noon. It was 12:35, 12:40. It hadn’t gone
Hell Hath No Fury — 61
off. Somebody had found it. The whole thing had
failed. And I couldn’t try it again, if somebody had
found that one. Was I glad, now that the pressure
was off? I didn’t know.
Then it came. The siren tore its way up through
the noonday hush, growing louder and higher,
screaming. The firehouse was only two blocks away,
and in a minute or so the fire engine came
lumbering past the lot, headed down Main, with the
cars beginning to fall in behind it. Gulick and I ran to
the sidewalk, both of us looking wildly around for
the smoke.
“It’s down there, in front of the bank somewhere!”
he said, pointing. People afoot were running now,
and cars were beginning to jam up down at the other
end of the street.

“Stick around, and I’ll go take a look,” I said.
Before he could answer I jumped in the car and shot
out into the street. Most of the traffic and the people
afoot were at least a block ahead of me. People were
pouring out of stores and the restaurant, yelling at
each other and running. And in the midst of all the
uproar I discovered I was cold as ice and clearheaded,
without any panic at all. A block before I got
to the bank I turned left and pulled the car to the
curb near the mouth of the alley in the side street.
Two or three other cars were parked along here, so
it didn’t look conspicuous. Two people went past,
running, not even seeing me.
The side street was empty now. A few people still
ran by on Main, but they looked straight ahead, their
eyes on the smoke. I reached into the back seat. The
blanket and piece of line were carefully folded up
inside the coat to the seersucker suit I had put on
this morning. I picked it all up, put the coat over my
arm, and went down the alley, running fast. When I
got to the end of it I slowed a little. A man came
running past, but didn’t see me, and went on up past
the side door of the bank. There was nobody else in
sight except the stragglers going by on Main. I went
up alongside the bank building to the side door,
stopped, and looked in. This was where it had to be
Hell Hath No Fury — 62
right.
It was just the way I’d figured it. The only person
in the place was the old man, and he was standing in
the front door with his back to me, watching the
black column of smoke boiling into the sky two
blocks away. I eased inside the door, turned, and
started back to the washroom, watching him with
quick glances over my shoulder. The rubber-soled
shoes I had on made no sound at all, and he was
intent on the uproar down the street.
I made it, and slipped inside the little room,
praying the door didn’t squeak. I pushed it carefully
until it was nearly closed, and I was out of sight. I
took a deep breath. There was a half partition,
presumably with a toilet behind it, and on this side
were the usual wash-basin and mirror. The mirror
didn’t face the door. I’d already checked on that.
I put the plug in the wash-basin and turned on the
water, then stepped back against the wall where I
would be behind the door as he pushed it open. I
hung the coat on a hook, held the blanket in my
hands, and waited, hardly breathing now. It was
deathly quiet. The basin filled, then started spilling
over on to the floor. Suppose he was hard of hearing
and didn’t notice it? I cursed myself. I was doing too
much supposing. A minute dragged by, and then
another. Water was beginning to run out into the
bank now. I turned my head and looked out the
crack at the back of the door. I could see the front of
the bank, only a narrow strip between here and
there. He was nowhere in sight.
Then suddenly I heard the faint scuff of a shoe,
just outside. He had already passed the area I was
watching, was almost to the door. I wheeled around
just as he stepped inside the washroom, pushing the
door back towards me. He was clear of it and
starting to bend over the wash-basin to turn the
water off.