James Chase - The World in My Pocket

He looked searchingly into the darkness, his hand automatically closing on the butt of his .38.

Ginny came out of the darkness and into the beam of the car’s headlights. She was wearing a blue plastic mac that glistened in the rain. Her copper-coloured hair was protected by a plastic hood.

‘First wet night for weeks,’ Morgan said. ‘I’d have picked you up if I knew where you lived.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, her voice curt.

Morgan moved between her and the workshop, hunching his shoulders against the rain.

‘Just where do you live, Ginny?’

She paused, the rain beating down on her and she looked at him.

‘That’s my business.’

He put his hand on her arm, pulling her to him.

‘That’s no way to talk to me, kid,’ he said. ‘You’re playing it a shade too mysterious. I don’t know who you are, where you come from, how you dreamed up this idea or even where you live. You could fade away if anything goes wrong and you might never have existed.’

She jerked free.

‘Would that be such a bad idea?’ she said and moving quickly around him, she walked up to the workshop door and knocked on it.

For a moment or so, Morgan remained motionless, his flat, black eyes narrowed, then as Kitson opened the door, he joined the girl and entered the workshop.

‘Hello there,’ he said, shaking the rain off his coat. ‘How’s it going?’

‘It’s finished,’ Kitson said, his eyes on Ginny as she stripped off her wet mac and tossed it on to the work bench. She was wearing a grey coat and skirt with a green blouse that set off the colour of her hair. Kitson felt a little pang in his heart to see how beautiful she looked. He stared searchingly at her. But for one brief glance at him, she paid him no attention. Picking up a brown-paper parcel she had brought with her and which she had put on the bench while she had taken off her mac, she walked over to where Gypo was standing by the caravan and gave it to him.

‘Here are the curtains,’ she said.

Morgan came over.

‘Well?’ he asked, looking at Gypo, who beamed at him, his fat face full of pride.

‘It’s finished, and it’s a good job, Frank,’ Gypo said, stripping off the paper from the curtains. ‘Just let me get these up and then you can see the sonofabitch.’

Bleck came out of the shadows, cleaning his hands on a lump of cotton waste. He saw Kitson was staring at Ginny and he looked at her intently himself.

He had been cut off from the society of women now for eleven days and he found Ginny irresistibly desirable. It amused him to see the way Kitson was staring at her. What did the punch-drunk bum imagine? Did he seriously think he could get to first base with a girl like her? He must be out of his head if he did!

‘Hello there,’ he said moving up to Ginny. ‘Long time no see. Where have you been hiding yourself?’

The girl smiled at him and this was unexpected. Bleck had imagined he would have had to work hard to get even a smile from her.

‘Oh, I’ve been around,’ she said casually. ‘Here and there, but I haven’t been hiding.’

‘Why didn’t you come down once in a while?’ Bleck asked, offering her his cigarette case. ‘We all could have done with a little female diversion.’

She took the cigarette and accepted the light he offered her.

‘I admit to being a female, but I don’t pretend to divert,’ she said.

Watching and listening, Kitson felt a sharp pang at his heart. The easy, silly conversation grated. He knew he could never make that sort of conversation with her and it hurt him to see that she seemed to like it.

‘Well, at least you should have come down and said hello,’ Bleck said. ‘I’ve been lonely. Imagine! For ten nights I’ve been sleeping with Gypo!’

She laughed.

‘That must have been quite a change for you,’ she said and turning, she moved over to the caravan around which Morgan was prowling, staring at it from every angle.

Hot and sweating, Gypo came out of the caravan, having put the curtains in place.

‘Go ahead and take a look,’ he invited. ‘It’s finished.’

Morgan continued to stare at the caravan.

‘How about the door, Gypo?’

Gypo beamed. This was his triumph: his masterpiece!

‘The door works. Hey, kid,’ he went on to Kitson, ‘show him how we’ve fixed it.’

Kitson went to the front of the caravan while Gypo and Morgan stood at the back.

Morgan examined the back. It appeared solid, part of the caravan’s bodywork.

‘Looks okay, huh?’ Gypo said, shuffling his feet with excitement, ‘It looks fine,’ Morgan said.

‘Open up, kid,’ Gypo said.

Kitson pulled down a lever and the back of the caravan swung upwards like the lid of a box, and at the same time part of the floor lifted and came down forming a ramp.

‘Pretty good, huh?’ Gypo said, rubbing his hands. ‘I had plenty of trouble getting the back and the floor to work together, but it’s done and it’s fast and smooth The ramp will take the weight of the truck. As you see, I’ve bound it with steel.’

As Bleck and Ginny drew closer, Morgan nodded approvingly.

‘That’s what I call a real job of work, Gypo,’ he said. ‘Let’s see it work several times.’

Before he was entirely satisfied, Kitson had to open the back of the caravan and shut it a dozen times.

‘Yeah,’ Morgan said. ‘That’s fine. Good work, Gypo.’

He walked up the ramp and into the caravan.

As proud as any housewife showing off her new home, Gypo stood on the ramp and pointed out the alterations he had made.

‘Those brackets up in the ceiling are for the acetylene and hydrogen cylinders,’ he said. ‘That cupboard there is to take the tools. The two bunks along the sides are for the stuff we take with us. The floor has been strengthened. We’ve put two steel girders across the chassis. There’s no chance now of the bottom falling out if we hit a bump.’

Morgan took time to examine everything, concentrating in particular on the floor of the caravan. He lay on his back under the caravan with an inspection lamp and checked the steel girders that had been bolted into position.

Gypo watched anxiously.

Finally Morgan stood away, his hands in his trousers pockets, his eyes glittering with excitement.

‘This is the job, Gypo,’ he said. ‘Just the way I wanted it. It’s going to be a hell of a weight when loaded, isn’t it?’

‘It’ll be heavy,’ Gypo said, ‘but the Buick should pull it. You said we don’t have any bad hills to climb.’

‘Well, no, we haven’t if we keep out of the mountains,’ Morgan said, scratching his jaw. ‘A lot depends, Gypo, on how fast you can bust into the truck. If it takes long, then maybe we’ll have to get into the mountains. That’s the one place where we can lose ourselves, but I don’t want to do it. The road up there is tricky and steep and I’m not sure if the Buick would get up there with this load.’

Gypo immediately became uneasy.

‘But you said I could have all the time in the world, Frank,’ he said, wiping his sweating hands on the seat of his trousers. ‘We’re not going to bust into that truck in five minutes.’

‘Okay, okay, take it easy,’ Morgan said soothingly while Ginny and the other two looked sharply at Gypo. ‘I don’t expect you to bust into it in five minutes. You’ve got two or three weeks, but after that, we may have to get into the mountains.’

Gypo shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his small eyes growing round.

‘But wait a minute, Frank, you said I could have a month’s uninterrupted work on the truck, now you’re talking about two or three weeks. This truck is tough. I’ve seen it. You can’t rush a thing like that.’