Роберт Беллем - Pulp Frictions

So now, here he was. Broke, disgusted, footsore, hungry, hitch-hiking his way back to Los Angeles, where he probably would get killed as soon as he was spotted. Even if no one else cared to murder him, his wife Bette would be itching to do so. Still, a guy had to go someplace, didn’t he? And having softened up Bette before, perhaps he could do it again. It was a chance — his only chance.

A hustling man needs a good front. Right now, Mitch looked like the king of the tramps.

Brushing the sweat from his eyes, he paused to stare at a sign attached to a roadside tree: Los Angeles — 125 Miles. He looked past the sign into the inviting shade of the trees beyond it... The ocean would be over there somewhere, not too far from the highway. If he could wash up a little, rinse out his shirt and underwear...

He sighed, shook his head and walked on. It wasn’t safe. The way his luck was running, he’d probably wade into a school of sharks.

In the distance, he heard another car approaching. Wearily, knowing he had to try, Mitch turned and swung his thumb.

It was a Cadillac, a big black convertible. As it began to slow down, Mitch had a feeling that no woman had ever given him such a going over and seemed to like so well what she saw as the one sitting next to the Cad’s driver.

The car came on, slower and slower. It came even with him, and the woman asked, ‘How far to El Ciudad?’

‘El Ciudad?’ — the car was creeping past him; Mitch had to trot along at its side to answer the question. ‘You mean, the resort? About fifty miles, I think.’

‘I see.’ The woman stared at him searchingly. ‘Would you like a ride?’ she asked.

‘Would I!’

She winked at Mitch, spoke to the man behind the wheel. ‘All right, stupid. Stop. We’re giving this guy a ride.’

The man grunted a dispirited curse. The car stopped, then spurted forward savagely as Mitch clambered into the back seat.

‘What a jerk!’ The woman stared disgustedly at her companion. ‘Can’t even give a guy a ride without trying to break his neck!’

‘Dry up,’ the man said wearily. ‘Drop dead.’

‘So damned tight you squeak! If I’d only known what you were like before I married you!’

‘Ditto. Double you in spades.’

The woman took a pint of whiskey from the compartment, drank from it and casually handed it back to Mitch. He took a long thirsty drink and started to pass the bottle back. But she had turned away again, become engrossed in nagging at her husband.

Mitch was just a little embarrassed by the quarrel, but only a little. Mitch Allison was not a guy to be easily or seriously embarrassed. He took another drink, then another. Gratefully, he settled down into the deeply upholstered seat, listening disinterestedly to the woman’s brittle voice and her husband’s retorts.

‘Jerk! Stingy! Selfish...’ she was saying.

‘Aw, Babe, lay off, will you? It’s our honeymoon, and I’m taking you to one of the nicest places in the country.’

‘Oh sure! Taking me there during the off-season! Because you’re just too cheap and jealous to live it up a little. Because you don’t want anyone to see me!’

‘Now that isn’t so, Babe. I just want to be alone with you, that’s all.’

‘Well, I don’t want to be alone with you! One week in a lifetime is enough for me...’

Mitch wondered what kind of chump he could be to take that sort of guff from a dame. In his own case, if Bette had ever talked that way to him — pow! She’d be spitting out teeth for the next year.

The woman’s voice grew louder, sharper. The slump to her husband’s shoulders became more pronounced. Incuriously, Mitch tried to determine what he looked like without those outsized sunglasses and the pulled-low motoring cap. But he didn’t figure long. The guy straightened suddenly, swerved the car off into a grass-grown trail, and slammed on the brakes.

Mitch was almost thrown from the seat. The husband leapt from the car and went stomping off into the trees. She called after him angrily — profanely. Without turning, he disappeared from view.

The woman shrugged and looked humorously at Mitch. ‘Some fun, huh, mister? Guess I rode hubby a little too hard.’

‘Yeah,’ said Mitch. ‘Seems that you did.’

‘Well, he’ll be back in a few minutes. Just has to sulk a little first.’ She was red-haired, beautiful in a somewhat hard-faced way. But there was nothing hard-looking about her figure. She had the kind of shape a guy dreams about, but seldom sees.

Mitch’s eyes lingered on her. She noticed his gaze.

‘Like me, mister?’ she said softly. ‘Like to stay with me?’

‘Huh?’ Mitch licked his lips. ‘Now, look, lady—’

‘Like to have this car? Like to have half of fifty thousand dollars?’ Mitch always had been a fast guy on the uptake, but this babe was pitching right past him.

‘Now look,’ he repeated shakily. ‘I... I— ’

‘You look,’ she said. ‘Take a good look.’

There was a briefcase on the front seat. She opened it and handed it back to Mitch. And Mitch looked. He reached inside, took out a handful of its contents.

The briefcase was filled, or at least half-filled, with traveller’s cheques of one-hundred-dollar bills. They would have to be countersigned, of course, but that was—

‘—a cinch,’ the woman said intently. ‘Look at the signature. No curlicues, no fancy stuff. All you have to do is sign it plain and simple — and we’re in.’

‘But—’ Mitch shook his head. ‘But I’m not—’

‘But you could be Martin Lonsdale — you could be my husband. If you were dressed up, if you had his identification.’ Her voice faded at the look Mitch gave her, then resumed again, sulkily.

‘Why not, anyway? I’ve got a few rights, haven’t I? He promised me the world with a ring around it if I’d many him, and now I can’t get a nickel out of him. I can’t even tap his wallet because he keeps all of his dough out of my hands with tricks like this.’

‘Tough,’ said Mitch. ‘That’s really tough, that is.’

He returned the cheques to the briefcase, snapped the lock on it and tossed it back into the front seat. ‘How could I use his identification unless he was dead? Think he’d just go to sleep somewhere until I cashed the cheques and made a getaway?’

The girl flounced around in the seat. Then she shrugged and got out. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘as long as that’s the way you feel...’

‘We’ll get hubby, right?’ Mitch also got out of the car. ‘Sure, we will — you and me together. We’ll see that he gets back safe and sound, won’t we?’

She whirled angrily, and stomped off ahead of him. Grinning, Mitch followed her through the trees and underbrush. There was an enticing roll to her hips — a deliberately exaggerated roll. She drew her skirt up a little, on the pretext of quickening her stride, and her long, perfectly shaped legs gleamed alluringly in the shade-dappled sunlight. Mitch admired the display dispassionately. Admired it, without being in the least tempted by it.

She was throwing everything she had at him, and what she had was plenty. And he, Mitch Allison, would be the first guy to admit that she had it. Still, she was a bum, a hundred and ten pounds of pure poison. Mitch grimaced distastefully. He wished she would back-talk him a little, give him some reason to put the slug on her, and he knew she was too smart to do it.

They emerged from the trees, came out on the face of a cliff overlooking the ocean. The man’s trail clearly led here, but he was nowhere in sight. Mitch shot an enquiring glance at the girl. She shrugged, but her face had paled. Mitch stepped cautiously to the edge of the cliff and looked down.

Far below — a good one hundred feet at least — was the ocean: roiled, oily-looking, surging thunderously with the great foam-flecked waves of the incoming tide. It was an almost straight up-and-down drop to the water. About halfway down, snagged on a bush which sprouted from the cliff face, was a man’s motoring cap.