Ричард Деминг - Hit and Run

He was nearly in the downtown section before he spotted a Buick service sign. He pulled through the open repair-garage doors just as the motor sputtered and died.

A cheerful-looking middle-aged man in coveralls came over to the driver’s side of the car and said, “Yes, sir?”

“Looks like I just ran out of gas,” Calhoun said, climbing out of the car.

The repairman raised his eyebrows. “We have a gas pump,” he said. “But wouldn’t it have been simpler to pull into a gas station?”

“I didn’t know I was low,” Calhoun explained. “The gauge has been acting up. It registers nearly half full. But I didn’t come in for gas. I need some body work.”

He led the man around to the other side of the car and pointed to the smashed fender, door, and bumper.

After carefully looking over the damage, the repairman asked, “What’s the other guy look like?”

“There wasn’t any other guy,” Calhoun told him. “My wife mistook a tree next to our drive for the garage.”

The repairman said he could do the whole job, including a check of wheel alignment, in three days for approximately three hundred dollars.

“That’s a rough estimate, you understand,” he said. “May vary a few bucks one way or the other.”

Calhoun gave him the name George Seward and a south Cleveland address a few miles from the repair garage. When the man asked for a phone number, Calhoun said he didn’t have a phone, and just to hold the car when it was finished until he picked it up.

“Might as well fix that gas gauge while you’re at it,” he said.

Calhoun’s business was completed by noon, and suddenly he was exhausted from lack of sleep and the strain of driving all night. He began to wish he had arranged to meet Helena at twelve thirty instead of two.

There was nothing to do but kill two hours, however. He took a taxi to the Statler, had lunch, and slowly sipped four highballs in the cocktail lounge while he waited for her. She showed up at ten after two.

“Want a drink?” he asked. “Or shall we go back to the court and collapse? I’m ready to fall on my face.”

She looked him over consideringly. “You do look tired,” she said. “We’ll pick up a couple of bottles of bourbon and some soda on the way, and I’ll have my drink at the court. Maybe we can get some ice from the proprietor.”

His four drinks had relaxed Calhoun just enough so that he had difficulty keeping his eyes open. He let Helena drive.

He was just beginning to drift off to sleep sitting up when the car braked to a stop, then backed into a parking place at the curb. He opened his eyes to see they were in front of a liquor store.

Reluctantly he climbed out of the car. “You say bourbon?” he asked Helena.

When she merely nodded, he went into the store. He bought two quarts of bourbon and a six-bottle carry-pack of soda.

Helena had filled the back seat with so many bundles that he decided to stow away his purchases in the trunk. When he raised the Dodge’s trunk lid, he was surprised to find the floor of the trunk soaking wet. There hadn’t been any water in it when he had searched the trunk for tools to change license plates.

But he was too sleepy to wonder about it much. He slammed the lid shut, climbed back into the car, and let himself sink back into a semicoma again. Helena had to shake him awake when they got back to the tourist court.

He climbed from the car and sleepily got the bourbon and soda from the trunk. “I think you’re going to have to drink alone,” he told Helena. “If I don’t lie down within the next thirty seconds, I’ll fall down. Want this stuff in your cabin?”

“I can carry it,” she said. “You go to bed.”

Taking it from him, she moved toward the door leading from the carport into her cabin. Over her shoulder she said, “I may not have a drink, either. I’m pretty tired, too. Maybe I’ll follow your example and just go to bed. Want me to get you up for dinner?”

“All right,” he said, and stumbled toward his own cabin.

Inside, he managed to get his shirt and his shoes off before falling onto the bed. He went to sleep instantly.

Calhoun slept straight through until eight o’clock that night. Apparently Helena did the same, for when he finally peered next door, her cabin was dark and the Dodge was still in its carport. She must have awakened about the same time he did, though, because she knocked at his door just as he finished dressing.

She was holding the two bottles of bourbon and the carry-pack of soda.

“I thought we’d have a drink before we went out to dinner,” she said.

Calhoun found two glasses in the bathroom, but the prospect of warm soda and bourbon didn’t appeal to him.

“I’ll see if I can get some ice at the office,” he said.

But the proprietor told him he was sorry, he had only enough ice for his personal needs. When Calhoun returned to the cabin, he suggested they have their before-dinner drink at the place they picked to eat.

“Maybe I can get some ice from him,” Helena said.

A drink didn’t mean that much to Calhoun, but since she seemed so set on one, he didn’t argue. From his open door he watched her move toward the office. The movement walking gave to her body was worth watching. It occurred to Calhoun that the motel proprietor would have to be made of ice himself to refuse her.

In a few moments she reappeared carrying a china water pitcher.

As she neared, he said to her, “You must have more sex appeal than I do.”

She came to a halt before her own cabin door and unlocked it. “Maybe you should have asked his wife,” she said. “Be with you in a minute.” She disappeared into her cabin.

What she wanted in the other cabin, Calhoun couldn’t decide, and when she reappeared a few moments later, she still carried nothing but the pitcher. Carefully she locked the door behind her, and came over to Calhoun’s door. When she handed him the pitcher, he saw it was full of cracked ice instead of cubes.

“What’s he have, an old-fashioned icebox?” Calhoun asked in surprise.

“I didn’t inquire,” Helena said. “I just asked for ice.”

They had two highballs before going out to hunt a place for dinner.

It was nine o’clock before they found one. It was a roadhouse called the White Swan , about a half mile from the tourist court, toward town. It was a big barn of a place, with booths lining two walls and tables spread over all the rest of the space except for a small dance floor at one end and the few feet in front of the bar at the other. A rather incompetent three-piece orchestra was playing pop music.

There was no head waiter or hostess. You found your own table and took your choice. The place wasn’t crowded, and Calhoun picked a table at the edge of the dance floor.

When a waitress came over, Calhoun looked inquiringly at Helena and asked, “Want a cocktail?”

“Just a bourbon and soda, I think,” she said. “I don’t like to mix my drinks.”

“Two bourbon and sodas, please,” he told the waitress. “And we’d like to order dinner.”

She left menus and went off for their drinks.

They ordered steaks, which turned out to be surprisingly good. It was nearly ten by the time they finished coffee, and the place had completely filled up. Only a few couples were dancing, though; most of them were sitting at tables or in booths with drinks. Calhoun noted that a large number of tables contained nothing but men.

“Wonder what the attraction is here,” he said. “It can’t be the music.”

They found out a few minutes later. The orchestra played an off-key introduction, the house lights dimmed, and a spotlight speared a young man who carried a portable microphone to the center of the dance floor.