Elmore Leonard: 52 pickup

Barbara could smell the french fries and felt nauseated again. She shook her head when Alan told her to help herself. He didn't seem to care. He was digging into the fries with his fingers, dipping them in catsup and stuffing them into his mouth as he got the wine out and poured two glasses. Barbara took one because she was thirsty and it looked cold. He made her come over to take it. Standing by the dresser she saw herself in the mirror. She looked ill, as though she'd been in bed with the flu. She should have on a robe, not a raincoat. She needed makeup and a hairbrush. But she knew she had no purse with her. The bottom of the raincoat was partly open. She buttoned it with one hand and was aware, then, that she wasn't wearing anything beneath the coat. Alan told her to sit on the bed and be a good girl. The wine was very cold. As she sipped it he let her have a cigarette and she began to feel a little better.

Alan was standing eating his hamburger, getting it done, staying close to the french fries and catsup on the tray. He was hungry. He could worry about Mitchell and wonder if the son of a bitch was pulling something, but he was still hungry and had to eat. The wine was good; it helped him relax. But he wished he'd taken a little longer yesterday afternoon, another twenty minutes, and had Richard get him some reefer. With reefer he could get his head together and see everything clearly.

He said to Barbara, "He been having trouble with his car?"

"Not that I know of."

"How was he going to get home?"

"You said he was leasing another one, didn't you?"

"But it didn't come. The day of all days he's got to have a car he says it didn't come."

"That happens, doesn't it?"

Alan was thoughtful. "I don't know. He could be pulling something. But I don't have time anymore to fool around."

Barbara watched him drink his wine and fill the glass again.

"If my husband told you he'll pay you, he will."

"I take your word for it."

"This is your idea," Barbara said, "not ours. I would assume you have to be optimistic in your business, believe you're going to be paid, or you'd never have gone into it."

She continued to watch him as he moved to the front of the motel room and pulled the draperies back to look out. It was dark now. She could see the shiny front of a car and neon lights on the street beyond.

"Why does he have to have a car?"

"To go where I tell him."

"I mean why not meet him at the plant, pick up the money there?"

Alan turned from the window to look at her but said nothing.

"You're afraid of the police," Barbara said. "But wherever you tell him to meet you he could bring the police, couldn't he?" Barbara paused. "But he won't. If he said he'll pay you, he will."

"Lie down," Alan said. "If I want to talk to you, I'll let you know."

He went into the bathroom, leaving the door open, came out and poured himself another glass of wine. He sat down now, turning off the lamp next to the chair, sipped the wine and smoked two cigarettes in the semidarkness. Barbara wasn't sure how much time passed, perhaps twenty minutes or a half-hour. He came over to the phone, sat on the bed facing her and lighted another cigarette before giving the operator Mitchell's number.

She heard him say, "You get a car?… All right, forget it, I'm going to come see you, sometime after your shift lets out… Just be there, alone. You know who's going to be with me. I'm going to drive in the parking lot. I don't like it, I drive out and that's all for your wife. I like it, you bring the money out and we do business… No, we get there I'll tell you what happens next." He paused, listening. "No, she's fine, man. Fact I didn't know an old lady'd be that good. Hey, don't she moan and squirm?" Alan laughed out loud hanging up the phone.

At a quarter past eleven he poured heroin into a Holiday Inn spoon and heated it over a candle he had brought from the Mitchell house. Barbara said to him, as he came over with the syringe, "Please don't, I'm already sick." Alan told her this would make her better, popped a vein in her arm this time and shot her high before she had time to kick, scream or say thank you. He didn't use all of the spoon on her; about half of it, good for an hour or so. He took a fresh needle and shot the rest of the scag into his own left arm. Yeeees. Man, that would help over the rough part. Reefer was sweeter, but a touch of scag would do in a pinch.

At ten to twelve Alan brought a couple of blankets and a pillow out of the room and made a nice little bed in the back of the panel, got Barbara into the truck without anyone seeing them and took off south down the highway. Barbara was making little moaning humming sounds as though she might be singing. Alan felt pretty good himself. Shit, he ought to. It was payday.

Mitchell, carrying a hi-sheen Tuffy-Hyde attache case, let the fire door swing closed behind him. He reached for the wall switches, began killing every other bank of fluorescents and somewhere in the dim empty plant area a voice yelled out, "Hey! I can't see!"

Somebody was still here.

Mitchell didn't see who it was until he was walking toward the back, toward the sound, and John Koliba stepped out of a dark aisleway between rows of parts bins: Koliba, the white tight T-shirt stretched across his belly, holding a pair of rubber vacuum cups, one in each fist.

"I thought you was gone," Koliba said. "I would have swore you walked by five minutes ago with that case in your hand. I was over in Quality Control."

Mitchell said, "I was out here. I went back to my office for something."

"I guess I didn't see you go back."

"I didn't see you either," Mitchell said. "What're you up to?"

"Well-don't laugh, okay? I got an idea for a kind of handling rig I been fooling with, seeing if I can make it work. On my own time, you understand. Maybe I got something, I don't know yet."

"Why don't you work on it during your shift?" Mitchell said. And he was thinking, Why don't you get the hell out of here right now.

"Well, I figured I should do it on my own time. You know, you got designers, engineers. You didn't hire me for that kind of work."

"No, but if you think you've got something, John, I'm willing to take a chance, I mean pay you for your effort," Mitchell said. "Starting tomorrow, work on it during your shift."

"That's great." Koliba grinned, his eyes squinting almost closed. "You got a minute I'll show you what I'm doing, the idea."

"I'd like to see it," Mitchell said, "but let's wait'll tomorrow, okay? Why don't you knock off now, go on home?"

"Yeah, well listen, then I'll show it to you tomorrow."

"I want to lock up," Mitchell said. "The security man's sick or something. He's not around tonight."

"Right," Koliba said. "I'll wash up, be out in a minute."

"Good, I want to get out of here."

"Why don't you go ahead? I'll see the door gets locked."

"No, there's a couple of things I got to check," Mitchell said. "Just hurry it up, okay?"

He was thinking, Christ, quit talking, and walked away gripping the attache case at his side. Behind him Koliba said something about a couple minutes is all. Ahead of him, down the aisle past the turning machines and the rows of stock bins, a spot of light reflected on the glass section of the rear door. He reached the door and looked out.

The reflection was from a light pole. The parking lot was empty. Good.

No, Christ, there was one car parked in a lane over to the far right. Of course. Koliba's. He said to himself, Why did he pick tonight of all the nights? Guy showing initiative, wanting to get ahead. And it's your own fault, you talked to him, inspired him. God. He said, Come on, John, come out right now and get in your car and get the hell out of here, will you? God, get him out of here. But almost as he said it to himself, like a silent prayer, it was too late.