Bill Pronzini - Bindlestiff

“Well, she points and she says to the other old lady, ‘You know,’ she says, ‘life sure is funny. When I was ten I didn’t know that thing existed. When I was twenty I was curious about it. When I was thirty I was enjoying it. When I was forty I was asking for it. When I was fifty I was begging for it. When I was sixty I was paying for it. And now that I’m seventy-’”

“Right, now that she’s seventy…”

“‘Now that I’m seventy,’ she says, ‘when my life is almost over, there it is growing wild.’”

The waitress thought that was the funniest one yet; she let out two hoots this time and convulsed into gales of laughter. Tears rolled down her cheeks. As far as she was concerned, old Bernie was Johnny Carson and Bob Hope and Bob Newhart all rolled up into one.

“Ain’t that a pisser?” Bernie said.

I was leaning against the counter by this time, not ten feet away, but they still didn’t seem to know I was there. I waited until the blonde got herself under control again and then rapped on the formica to get her attention. She looked at me, hiccupped, said, “Just a second, okay?” and went right on giggling.

Bernie had turned on his stool and was grinning at me. “You hear that one?” he said. “Wasn’t that a pisser?”

“Yeah,” I said. “If it was any more of a pisser I’d have wet my pants.”

He didn’t like that; his grin disappeared. Which was all right with me. I don’t like stupid jokes, especially stupid Italian jokes, and I don’t like the kind of people who tell them. Bernie was a jerk. And if he wanted me to, I was more than willing to tell him so.

But it didn’t come to that. Whatever else Bernie was, he wasn’t the belligerent type. All he did was pick up the glass of cola in front of him and mutter, “Some guys got no sense of humor.”

The waitress said, “Bernie, I swear to God, you ought to go on TV. I really mean it.” Then she wiped her face, let him have one more giggle, and came down to where I was. “What’ll it be, mister?”

“Cup of coffee.”

She turned to the hotplate on the back counter and poured the coffee. I had the newspaper photo out, and when she set the cup in front of me I laid the clipping beside it and tapped Charles Bradford’s image with my forefinger. “Did this man happen to come in here on Tuesday afternoon between five and six o’clock?”

She bent close to squint at the photo. Then she frowned and said, “A tramp, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, a tramp did come in here on Tuesday afternoon,” she said. “I think it was this one. It sure looks like him.”

“What did he want?”

“A cup of coffee, same as you. I thought he was panhandling-they come in here and try to get a freebie sometimes-and I told him I had to see his money first. He had it in change, just barely. I made him pay me before I gave him the coffee.”

“Did he want anything else?”

“Like what?”

“Information, maybe?”

“Well, yeah, he did ask directions. How come you’re so interested in this tramp, anyway?”

“I’m trying to find him for his daughter,” I said. “What did he want to know?”

“Where Firth Road was.”

“Firth Road.”

She nodded. “So I told him, and he drank his coffee and left. That’s all.”

“He didn’t say what he wanted on Firth Road?”

“No. He didn’t say anything else.”

“What sort of street is it? A side road, a main thoroughfare, what?”

“It’s only a couple of blocks long,” she said. “A dead-end street.”

“What’s on it? Houses, businesses?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Hey, Bernie, what’s on Firth Road?”

Bernie turned on his stool again. He still seemed a little hurt that I hadn’t properly appreciated his jokes. “Not much on it,” he said in a grudging way. “PG and E substation, couple of business places, and the railroad museum.”

“Railroad museum?” I asked.

“Yeah. Guy named Dallmeyer runs it. It’s a freaking tourist trap.”

“How long has it been there?”

“Who knows? Ten years, maybe.”

“What’re the business places?”

“Electrical outfit-Jorgensen’s,” he said. “And a fruit packing plant.”

“That’s all?”

“Ain’t that enough?”

“How long have those two been operating?”

“How should I know? Do I look like I work for the goddamn Chamber of Commerce?”

The waitress giggled again. Even when he wasn’t telling dumb jokes, Bernie was so funny.

I said, “How do I get to Firth Road?”

“It’s a couple of miles north of here,” the blonde said, “out toward the dam. It branches off the main drag.”

“Oro Dam Boulevard, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

I drank some of my coffee; it wasn’t very good, but at least it was hot. I fished two quarters out of my pocket, set them on the counter, drank a little more coffee, and got up from my stool.

“Hey, Lynn,” Bernie said abruptly. “I got another one for you.”

The waitress said, “Oh God,” and winked at me, and went down to where he was. “Well?”

“So Smokey the Bear gets married,” he said, “but he and his wife never have any sex. You know why?” But he was looking at me as he spoke, not her, and there was a determined expression on his face, as if his reputation as a comedian was on the line and he had to tell one that would make me laugh or lose points.

“No,” the blonde said, “why do Smokey the Bear and his wife never have any sex?”

“Because every time she gets hot, he throws dirt on her and beats her with a shovel.”

That was a one-hooter for the blonde. She said, “Nobody better try’n throw dirt on me when I get hot,” and broke up again.

I just looked at Bernie. Then I turned and started for the door.

“You know how many Polacks it takes to pull off a kidnapping?” he said, a little desperately.

“No,” the waitress said, “how many?”

“Six. One to grab the victim and five to write the ransom note.”

She hooted-and I walked out into the good, clean air and shut the door quietly behind me.

The two-block length of Firth Road was flanked by shade trees and looked as deserted as most of the rest of Oroville. The electrical outfit, Jorgensen Electric, and the Orchard-Sweet fruit packing plant were situated across from each other in the first block; the strong, pungent smell of cooked apples and plums came out of the big warehouse there. On the second block the Pacific Gas amp; Electric substation and the railroad museum were also set opposite each other, with the museum on the north side. Beyond the dead-end of the street, and some dense shrubbery and scrub pine, I could see the raised right-of-way of a main line of rail tracks.

I decided to start with the substation. But if there was anyone on duty inside, I couldn’t raise him. I gave it up after a time and crossed to the museum.

It was a good-sized complex set behind a wire-mesh fence: a big, high-domed roundhouse, a smaller outbuilding that looked to be some kind of storage shed, two old passenger coaches and a caboose arranged in front of and alongside the roundhouse for touring purposes, and the remains of a spur track at the rear that had probably once connected with the rail lines beyond. A sign on the front gate said the same thing as one I’d passed out on Oro Dam Boulevard: ROUNDHOUSE RAILROAD MUSEUM. Another sign below it read: RELICS OF THE FABULOUS AGE OF STEAM RAILROADING. ADMISSION $1.00. But the gate was closed and locked, and so was the ticket booth just inside, and there was a third sign on the booth that said: CLOSED.

On the east side of the complex, outside the fence and shaded by live oaks, was a small cottage that probably belonged to the man who ran the museum-Dallmeyer, Bernie the comic said his name was. Parked near it on a diagonal was a van with the museum’s name painted on the side. I started back there, following a rutted gravel drive that skirted the edge of the fence. As I did I noticed that there were puffs of white vapor coming up from behind the roundhouse. At first I thought it was smoke; then I saw how quickly it evaporated and realized it was steam.