Джеймс Кейн - Rainbow’s End

“What do you think?” she asked me.

“Well,” I told her. “It’s why we got Mr. Bledsoe in it, why you did, why you asked him to come out. It covers everything that we were worried about and in a very simple way. At last we’d be playing it safe.”

“How much reward?” she asked.

“Well, that’s up to you. I would say maybe five percent, which you could well afford. It’s off your taxes anyway.”

“My — what?”

“You’ll pay heavy tax on this 98. On 93 you’d pay less.”

“You mean, give him five thousand?”

“Well? For finding your money, for deciding no charges are called for—?”

She sat there staring at him, and then: “I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. I have the money now. If I put it out there again—?”

“For one night only, remember.”

“Yes, but just the same—?”

He sat there a minute but then jumped up to face us. “Wait a minute, wait a minute!” he growled, very excited. “At last I’ve caught up with this, to know why my instinct told me you have to put it back, that money, in the tree, to let Edgren find it. That woman — it lies in her power, not only to say the three of you hid the money, but that one of you killed him for it — Shaw, I’m talking about. Howell, that one is you. Now if you want to spend the next 20 years in prison while she gets immunity for singing—”

“OK, Mr. Bledsoe, you’ve said it.”

That was me. She sat staring at him.

Bledsoe left, and I went outside with him, but she still sat there staring at the money. As he got in his car he said: “I don’t think that girl’s going to do it. I think she’s hipped on that money. OK, it’s a lot, and putting it out in a sycamore tree, if only for one night, is a heartbreak — but nothing like the heartbreak it’s going to be if it’s taken from her and on top of that, she does a stretch in Marysville. She seems to like you, and I think it would help if you remind her that Mrs. Howell holds the cards, if she wants to play them. She’s not in your power, as this girl seems to think. She and you are in hers, but bad. Because if you killed Shaw to save a girl from being killed, that’s one thing, and no one could possibly mind. But if you killed him to steal the money, if the three of you had that idea, that’s a whole new ball game. Unfortunately, it’s Edgren’s idea, and Mantle’s, or seems to be. Police have that kind of mind.”

He drove off after calling through the window: “You’re still riding for free — no charge for this, Dave.” I waved, but when I went back inside, she was still sitting there, still staring at the money. I asked: “Are you going to do what he said?”

“Yeah, it was easy for him to say, it cost him nothing to say it. It’s not his money, it’s mine. It’s mine and I’ve got it, so why should I give it up? Go hiding it out in some sycamore tree? And another thing: How do I know that Edgren will give it to me? Or that he won’t swipe it from me?”

“You have to trust someone.”

“For one hundred thousand bucks, this lawyer wouldn’t trust anyone. Why should I?”

“In other words, you’re not going to?”

“I have to think about it.”

“Then I have to warn her.”

“Warn who?”

“Warn who do you think?”

“Then if that’s how you feel about her, and how you feel about me—!”

“Her? And you? What about me?”

“What do you have to do with it?”

“Didn’t you hear what he said? So long as she sticks around, she can send the both of us to prison. I’d rather get her out of the way — try to get her out of the way.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“I assume she’s in Flint — laying low till things blow over and it’s safe to pick up the money. I’m going to tell her it’s been found, and she’d better make tracks for Cuba. Or Mexico. Or someplace. She may do it. I don’t know.”

“With my two thousand bucks?”

“It’s worth it.”

“To whom?”

“Didn’t you hear him? To us.”

“Of my money, you mean.”

“I’m getting a bit sick of your money.”

“I’m not.”

We sulked at each other, and then she asked: “And how are you going to Flint? She has your car, don’t forget. And you’re not taking mine, I promise you.”

“Truck.”

“What truck?”

“Pickup truck I have to haul stuff into town. Out in the wagon shed. What was the wagon shed, when it was built.”

“Then OK, warn her.”

“I’m going to. But I’m also going to warn you. What you do today is going to affect the rest of your life — to make it, financially at least, or wreck it, in every way there is. I strongly suggest to you that you not drive off with this money in your car or carry it to your hotel, or anywhere. And I also suggest that you not do anything before talking to someone else — someone you have confidence in, like York. Be sure you tell him what Mr. Bledsoe said, and once you have his reaction you can take it from there. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

I started for the door. She jumped up at last. “Is that all you have to say?”

“I’ve said too much already.”

“Nobody minds, that I notice.”

Suddenly I went over and took her in my arms. But she didn’t really come to me. After a moment or two she lifted her face and I kissed her. If she kissed back, I can’t be sure, but if she did it wasn’t a real honest kiss, kind of a halfway thing that said of course she liked me, but at the same time I must remember that one hundred grand was one hundred grand, or that $98,000 was $98,000. It was the kind of a kiss that can count.

Flint was 60 miles, an hour by the old way of driving, an hour and a half now, and it was a beautiful morning, a spring day in March. The first few miles were low hills, rolling country covered with farms, but coming in toward the Monongahela River, the mountains began to show gray, a little cloudy on top as though they were made of smoke and you could throw a rock through them if you could throw a rock that far. At Clarksburg I hit the west branch of the river, and pulled out on a roadside park, to sit and look for a minute and drink it in. I knew then, of course, if I’d ever forgotten it, that I was mountain, and that this country spoke to me, in a way no other country could.

I also wanted to think, to pull my wits together and decide what I wanted to say, face to face once more with Mom. If I played it the way she wanted, it would be duck soup, as I knew, regardless of what had been said or done or not done that night in my bed back home. If I played it a different way, the way I more or less had to, I could be heading for trouble, real trouble, mean trouble. The question was, could I shade it the least little bit, act friendly without starting something I couldn’t stop? What I came up with was: take it as it comes; don’t cook it up in advance, let her lead to me, don’t go out to meet trouble. After a couple of nice inhales, I started up again and drove on, came to Deer Creek soon and followed it up to Flint. I don’t know if you’ve seen an abandoned coal camp, but I do know that if you have, you don’t care to see it twice.

At the bottom, of course, was the “creek,” a freshwater mountain stream, quite pretty if that was all. Above it was what was left of the spur, the railroad connection that ran down to the main line beside the river. But for whole stretches the rails were gone, with nothing left but weeds. Then when some rails would show they were rusty and slewed around. Above the spur was the road I was driving on that wasn’t much but was in better shape than the spur. Above the road were the houses the miners had lived in, all falling apart now, with busted windows and doors hanging off their hinges. But in between were gaps, where houses had been carted off, and those houses had been loaded on trucks and stolen.