A. Fair: Shills Can't Cash Chips

The parking spaces near the market entrance were well filled. Most of the vacant spaces were at the extreme end of the parking lot. Doris drove slowly, looking the situation over, then drove to the very end of the parking lot and parked her car up against a wall on the right-hand side. She opened the door on the left and slid out, giving me a flashing glimpse of nylon and leg.

She slammed the car door behind her without even looking back and walked with her short, quick steps into the supermarket.

There was a vacancy on the left and I parked my car so close to hers that she couldn’t possibly open the left-hand door. She was close enough to the wall on the right so she couldn’t open that door.

A tall, rangy man parked a Ford sedan next to my car.

I took the keys out of my car, put them in my pocket, went over to a shady place by the corner of the market and waited.

I didn’t have long to wait.

Doris came out carrying a brown paper bag filled with groceries. She hurried over toward the place where she had left her car, started to insinuate herself between my convertible and her car, then saw the predicament she was in, hesitated, walked around to the right-hand side and tried to get in there, only to find that the wide door wouldn’t open far enough to let her get in.

She looked around, frowning. I could see she was good and mad.

She set the bag of groceries down, walked over to my convertible, looked it over, then reached across to the steering wheel and sounded the horn.

I waited a few minutes, then came sauntering along as though looking for someone, did a double-take when I saw Doris, and turned my head away.

“Is this your car?” she snapped.

“No, ma’am,” I said.

She frowned.

“Why?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”

“Is something wrong!” she stormed. “Look at the way this moron has parked. I can’t get my car door open and I’m in a hurry.”

“Well, what do you know,” I said.

She looked me over and said, “What do I know? I’ll tell you what I know. I know what I think of the man who parked that car. I can tell you a lot of things I know about him, but you probably wouldn’t think I know the words. Is there any way we can move that damned car? Can we push it back?”

I said, “He’s probably in the market. We might be able to find him.”

“Sure, we might. We could go in there and page him over the loud-speaker,” she said. “I don’t want to do it. There are lots of people in that market. I... I’d like to let the air out of his tires.”

I said, “I could move it if...”

“If what?” she asked.

“I’d hate to get caught,” I said.

“Doing what?”

“Short-circuiting the ignition.

She looked me over from head to foot and said, “How long would it take?”

“About ten seconds.”

She turned on the charm. “Well?” she asked. “What’s holding you back?”

I said, “If I should get caught... I’d go back—”

She showed red lips, pearly teeth, and blinked her big black eyes at me. “Please,” she said. “Pretty please!”

I went over to the car, looked furtively over my shoulder, jumped in behind the wheel, took out my knife, scraped insulation from two of the wires, took a short piece of wire from my pocket, jumped the switch, started the car, backed it out and smiled at her. “This all right, lady?” I asked.

She opened her car door, put in the bag of groceries, hesitated a moment, then deliberately elevated her short, tight skirt as she slid in, giving me lots of scenery.

She started her motor, backed her car.

I moved the rented car back up into the position it had previously occupied, opened the left-hand door and got out.

She beckoned me over.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Donald,” I said.

She smiled seductively. “I’m Doris,” she said, “and you’re a dear, Donald. How did you learn how to do that?”

“I learned in a hard school, lady,” I said.

“Doris,” she corrected.

“Doris,” I said.

“And you took a chance and did that for me?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a dear,” she said once more, and gave me the benefit of her smile. “What are you doing here, Donald? You’re not shopping. Are you waiting for someone? Your wife in there shopping?”

“I don’t have a wife.”

“Girl friend?”

“I don’t have a girl friend.”

“Why not, Donald?”

“I haven’t had the chance to make any contacts — yet.”

“What’s been holding you back?”

“Circumstances over which I have no control.”

“Donald, I might be able to help you. Tell me, what are you doing hanging around here?”

I let her see that I was hesitating, then finally I said, “It’s one of the checkers. I want to talk with him but I don’t want to talk with him when anyone’s around and — they’re busy in there.”

“They’ll be busy in there for a while,” she said. “Why don’t you see him when he gets off work?”

“I guess I’ll have to.”

Her eyes were pools of invitation. “Want a ride uptown?”

“Gosh... thanks.”

I walked around the car, opened the door and got in. She made a token gesture of pulling her skirt down with thumb and forefinger, moving it perhaps a sixteenth of an inch.

“I’m going to the Miramar Apartments,” she said. “Is that where you’d like to go?”

“Where are the Miramar Apartments?” I asked.

“Three-fourteen Chestnut.”

“I guess so,” I said. “It’s all right with me. That is, one place is just like another.”

She backed the car, spun the wheel, made a boulevard stop at the main street, swung out into traffic, flashed me a glance and said, “Look, Donald, you’re down on your luck. Right?”

“Right.”

“How did you know how to jump-wire that car?”

“Oh, I just knew,” I said.

“Have you ever done that before?”

I kept my eyes on the floor boards of the car. “No.”

“You don’t have to lie to me, Donald. You had that short piece of wire in your pocket. You were hanging around that parking lot. Now tell me why.”

I hung my head.

“Donald, tell me. Have you ever been in trouble?”

“No.”

“That checker in there you wanted to see, had you known him somewhere? Perhaps in some institution?”

“No.”

“Donald, you’ve been around, you know that you could have got in serious trouble if the owner of that car had come out and caught you jumping those wires. You’d have been in a serious predicament. You know that, don’t you?”

I nodded.

“All right. Why take that chance?”

“Because you — you smiled.”

“Do my smiles do that to you, Donald?”

“Your smiles, your figure, and your legs,” I said.

“Donald!”

I looked back over my shoulder. The tall, gangling guy in the Ford sedan was two cars behind us.

I suddenly fumbled at the car door. “If you wouldn’t mind stopping,” I said, “I’d better get out here, lady.”

“The name is Doris,” she said.

“I’d better get out here, Doris.”

“I’m going to the Miramar Apartments, Donald. That’s where I live.”

A signal light turned against us. She pressed a delicate, high-arched foot on the brake pedal. “I live there,” she repeated.

“Good-by, Doris,” I told her. “You were wonderful.”

I opened the door, jumped out and slammed the car door shut.

She started to say something but the light changed and the driver of the car behind her pressed the horn button gently.

She looked at me almost wistfully for a moment, then drove on.

The tall, rangy driver of the Ford sedan was looking for a parking place but couldn’t find one. He reluctantly moved on with the string of traffic.