Борден Дил - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956

“What branch?”

“Army. Signal corps. After basic I latched onto an outfit working communications for beachheads. Tough a couple of times a year, but in between there were long stretches where we didn’t do much besides tune up equipment, replace tubes and batteries, and play cards. We overdid it; I seldom care for cards now.”

It went on like that for quite a spell, batting it back and forth from past to present and the like. We pushed along steadily and crossed into California just out of Topaz Lake. Being a truck, we had to roll in for a check-up. I swung the doors on the empty van; they took a quick peek and we were on our way again. We made Bishop and Maggie read the city-limits sign on the way in. We stopped for chow and once again she was very much concerned that we be able to watch the truck as we ate.

“You got gold in those suitcases?” I kidded.

“The Blake bankroll isn’t enormous but I’d hate to lose the few things I have.”

I didn’t think any more about it, but when we pulled out onto the highway and left Bishop the blonde mentioned the name again. She said it real clear, like an adult teaching a child to pronounce it.

“Bishop. Nice town, Bishop.”

“Sure,” I agreed, and shot a quick glance her way, “but it gets awful hot here and—”

She pointed at a kid off in the distance, galloping bareback on an old red horse, and changed the subject. We picked up a little speed and I checked the side mirror like a trucker will, just seeing how things stand. It was Sunday and some of the weekend tourists were headed home. There’d be a lot more of them as we closed in on L.A.

I didn’t notice anything special — not at first, I didn’t. Then I picked up a car quite a way back, one that seemed to hang on back there. The gleam on its chrome grill was pretty bright and it made a pattern. Only it didn’t get bigger and bigger in the rearview mirror and then flash past like they usually do. Just flashed in arid out of sight from time to time. The car was chugging along at the forty-five and fifty I held. I glanced at the blonde, but if she knew she gave no sign. We scooted along mile after mile, the endless strip of gray concrete passing under us. The car with all the chrome was still with us when Lone Pine loomed ahead.

“Matt — is anything wrong?”

“Wrong?”

I’d said it too quickly. Maggie gave me a reproachful look. “You haven’t said much lately,” she said.

I forced a big grin. “Just thinking about another cup of coffee, or maybe something cool. Let’s stop in Lone Pine.”

She nodded. I let the needle drop to forty; the car behind showed and began to close. Then it held off and stayed its distance. I shaved another five off the speed, but the driver was wised up and cut down, way down. He stayed out of sight a little while. In Lone Pine I would know for sure. I wheeled into the first place we came to and we got down for cokes. She watched the truck as we drank, but not me. I kept tab on the stretch of highway down which we had come. He didn’t show. He’d stayed out in the heat rather than run abreast of us in town.

Now I could quit worrying about whether or not he was tagging us. I could start wondering, instead, who in hell it was and what he found so attractive about the stern of Matt Brady’s truck.

On the way out Maggie read the town’s name.

“Lone Pine. Is Lone Pine another hot one, Matt?”

“Sure. They’re all hot on this run. Will be until we hit the coast.”

For the next hundred miles, I dealt light conversation off the top of my mind — the serious business at hand being right under the surface all the while. I couldn’t forget that car that had been on my tail. I had to know something about what was going on. I couldn’t ask the girl; she could be in the thing or out, but either way it wouldn’t help to ask her. The four hundred dollars I took from Bart Akers’ Silver King could be ruled out. If they had wanted the dough, they could have forced matters last night in their office. In fact, they had been careful not to mention the return of their cash. I kept turning it over and over, and I still hadn’t the remotest idea whether it was the Wirth or the Akers side of the puzzle back there.

The town of Mojave lay ahead. “Rest-stop, Maggie,” I said. “You can freshen up while I take on oil. Then I’ll let you stand guard duty.”

She nodded. Only this time I had no intention of keeping our little playmates out in the heat. This time I was going to let them come right on into town.

I cruised along through the outskirts of Mojave and almost to the far end of the short main street, eased into a filling station, and checked the rearview. The big car was just holing up in a station two blocks back and on the other side. He could keep track of me from there. I waited until Maggie came back, then climbed down and went around the end of the building marked MEN. But I kept right on going. Once out of sight of my truck, I sped down the alley on the double. Two blocks, then a left turn and I casually eased down the half block toward the highway. I wondered who it would be — Akers’ hired hands, or Wirth’s.

When I got a peek at the big car, I worked a little farther along until I saw the man behind the wheel. It was Joe — Wirth’s bird-dog, the boy in the fancy tweeds. I turned my back to light a smoke and think. It was Wirth’s idea, then. He’d held me up for some reason he’d never told me, because he wasn’t any more prepared to unload the stuff on Sunday morning than he was on Saturday afternoon. But he had let me go Sunday. He’d all but kissed me good-bye. I blew a cloud of smoke and took a second look. I saw Varney climbing into the car on the other side!

I started back to my rig, the way I’d come. Joe and Varney — together. So Wirth and Bart Akers were running hand in hand. Sure, Wirth could say “put it on the bill” and walk out. He probably owned part — maybe most or all — of the Silver King.

That put Maggie in on the ground floor. I’d suckered in all the way. The phony card game. The big act where Matt Brady tried to play hero and got a crimp in his skull. And all the time the blonde had been making those eyes of hers do tricks, it had been just a game.

It wasn’t hard to see now. Wirth keeping me in Reno just long enough to steer me into the blonde. Some sleight of hand and the girl ordered out of town — but not before she’d laid the ground work about a sister in L.A. And even if I hadn’t suggested her coming with me, she could have angled it so I would. But why?

Why did Jake and Bart Akers groom a trucker down with four hundred clams and a doll and send him on his way to Los Angeles? The van was empty; I’d opened it at the State-line inspection. Only the girl and her things were on board. She could have gone by train. She could have been in that car two blocks behind my rig. Why didn’t they take the girl and her two suitcases in their car?

I stopped on that and lit another smoke. Any way you looked at it there was only one answer. Whatever it was I carried, it was too hot to handle. They could ride along behind to keep tab, but they didn’t want to be caught with it. That left a reasonable doubt on the blonde. If they didn’t want to bring it to L.A., she probably wouldn’t want to either.

Maybe she wasn’t all the way in. I wanted to believe that. I’d been so sure about that spark between us. So sure. And when I pulled myself up into the cab, before rolling out of Mojave with our escort, I looked long and steadily into Maggie’s face.

I still wanted to believe she wasn’t really selling me out.

For another seventy-five miles I tried to smile in the right places, and it must have been fairly successful because Maggie didn’t seem to know I’d caught wise. I kept hoping it was the other way, that she knew less about things than I did — but in San Fernando we came to the payoff.