Philip Dick - In Milton Lumky Territory

“We better get going,” he said, deciding that she was tired.

The McDevitts congratulated them again, shook hands with him, gave them their address in California, and then Bruce and Susan said good night and left the cocktail lounge. There, near his Merc, the McDevitts’ dirt-stained Buick was parked, with a water bag dangling from the rear bumper, bugs by the thousands dead and dying on the hood, windshield, front bumpers and fenders, and, inside the car, piles of luggage.

It made him conscious of the road. Here they stood, at the edge of the highway that crossed to the coast, into ‘and out of one state after another. Mile after mile of it…in the night darkness he could see only a few hundred feet of it. The rest vanished. But he sensed it as he walked by the McDevitts’ car.

And he could smell the hot, thinned motor oil that had begun to leak out of the crankcase of the car. It had gone so far, had gotten so hot and been in use so long, that oil now coated the entire underside of the motor.

Years had gone by before he had learned what that smell was. The smell appeared only when the repeated combustions had broken the oil down and nearly destroyed it; carbon had formed on the valves, and scale on the pistons, sediments had sunk down and been expelled from the crankcase through the breather pipe, and the watery crap that remained had been blown out past the oil-seal at the end of the crankshaft, to fly out at the clutch housing in the form of a spray that gradually, hour after hour, became mixed with dust and road grime and bodies of bugs and rock fragments and older oil from previous cars, and the smell of tires, and the smell of the entire car, its metal and rubber and lubrication and fabric, even the smell of the driver and passenger who had been sitting in their seats ever since sunup, getting out only to use the restrooms at gas stations and to eat at roadside diners and to ask instructions in roadside bars and to see what was making the peculiar noise on sharp curves. To Bruce, the smell had a dark nauseating undercurrent. It meant that a motor had been used and overused, and would have to be rebuilt or at least overhauled, given new rings, especially new oil rings, because oil was being forced out under the pressure that built up in the crankcase, but at the same time he thought of that motor wearing itself out on the mountain grades, in the Sierras, and on the long stretches of the desert that got it hotter and hotter; the motor had not broken, it had been worn out doing what it had been built to do. It had worn out over seventy thousand miles of road. Twenty-five times across the country…

“What on earth possessed you to rattle on to them about out personal business?” Susan said curtly, as they entered the Merc. “I could hardly believe my ears.”

He said, “The man’s in the trout fly business. He doesn’t even live here in town; they’re passing through. What possible harm could it do?” He had prepared himself for her accusation; he saw it coming.

“The first rule of business is that you keep your affairs to yourself,” she said, still fuming.

“No harm was done,” he said.

“It’s the idea of it. What was it, the drinks? Is that why you rattled on and on? I almost got up and walked out; I would have, but I didn’t on your account.”

They drove in silence for a time.

“Are you going to do that continually?” she asked.

He said, “I’ll continue to do what I feel is best.”

“I don’t see how—” She broke off. “Anyhow, it’s done. But I hope you have better sense in the future.”

“What’s wrong?” he said, aware that something deeper was involved.

“Nothing,” she said crossly, stirring about fitfully, unable to get comfortable. “You certainly enjoy talking about cars and driving, don’t you? I thought you and he would never stop. It’s so late. Don’t you realize that Zoe won’t be down to open up tomorrow—we have to get there ourselves!”

“Take it easy,” he said. “You’re tired. Calm down.”

Suddenly, with a harsh stricken cry, she blurted out, “Listen, I’m not going to give Zoe the money. I still have it; I’m going to keep it and keep her as half-owner.”

He felt as if he had lost control of everything around him; it was all he could do to keep driving the car. The familiar steering wheel felt in his hands as odd as if it were alive. It spun free of him, and he grabbed it back.

“I just don’t have what it takes,” she said, in a chanting, gasping voice. “I can’t do it; I’m sorry. I really am sorry. If I don’t give her the money then it’s all off. She stays on whether she wants to or not. I know I can back out; as long as I haven’t actually turned the money over to her. I asked Fancourt that originally. But that doesn’t affect you.” She swung around in his direction; in the darkness her eyes gleamed frantically. “You’ll still manage the place; I know Zoe won’t object.”

He could think of nothing to say. He drove.

“It wouldn’t keep us alive,” she said. “We can’t take the chance—don’t you see, it would have to start supporting us right away, because we don’t have any money. And we would never be able to lay in any stock to sell. Do you have any money?”

“No,” he said.

“Can you get any?”

“No,” he said.

“We can’t do it,” she said, with finality so bleak and bitter that he felt more sorrow for her than anything else.

“If Zoe stays on,” he said, “you can be sure it won’t support us. Isn’t that true?”

“But we’d have the three thousand,” she said. “That’s what keeps preying on my mind. Once I give it to her, it’s gone forever. See? We’ll keep the three thousand; we’ll have that, and then the place won’t have to support us.”

“Not for awhile, at least,” he said.

Susan said, with no warning, “Bruce, let’s give up the place. Why not? Zoe can have it. We’ll offer to sell it to her, for whatever she wants to pay. Maybe for a monthly payment. How much were you making at that discount house?”

With difficulty, he said, “About three-fifty.”

“That wouldn’t be enough, but with the three thousand we could get along until you were earning more, and I could do some manuscript typing in the evenings. Can you get your job back?”

For reasons unknown to him he told her the truth. “Yes,” he said.

“Let’s do that.” She had the urgency of a child. “Let’s move down to Reno. I thought it was glorious down there. The air is much healthier down there, isn’t it? That’s why you moved down; I remember, you told me. I forget when. It’s an excellent place to bring up a child; it’s so clean and modern. Very cosmopolitan.”

“That’s right,” he admitted.

“How would you feel?” Sitting beside him she yearned for him to say he’d like it fine. Her posture, her tension, begged him to agree.

“You change your mind too often,” he said.

“Bruce,” she said, “I have to be sure of a means of support. I know you’re talented, and you know how to buy and sell, but it’s too much of a gamble. This has nothing to do with you; it has to do with how much capital we can raise, and the business itself. It’s a bad business. I know. I’ve been in it for several years; you haven’t.”

He said, “I intend to try.”

“But that means buying Zoe out and giving up the three thousand,” Her need of retaining the cash stood out as a major factor in her thinking. Evidently now that the time had arrived to surrender it she simply could not do so.

“Buy her out,” he told her. “As you were going to.”

“No,” she said, but her voice wavered.

He repeated, “Buy her out. We’ll give it a try. If I can’t make it support us, I’ll get a job and you can either sell out for what you can get, or you can operate it yourself. We’ll see when the time comes.”