Charles Williams - Girl Out Back

“I’d like to speak to the owner . . .” he was saying.

He hadn’t seen it. He was looking at the pharmacist. The clerk was almost here. I snapped out of it then, at last.

“Here, here,” I said chidingly, grabbing up the bill at the same time. “Put your money away. It’s the least I can do. . . .”

I grabbed her purse and stuffed it inside and closed it. He was still talking; he hadn’t even looked around. I felt limp.

“Why, Mr. Godwin, I couldn’t. . .” she began.

“Don’t be silly,” I said, smiling at her. “I was just wondering how I could thank you.” I tossed a five on the counter for the clerk.

But what now? My thoughts were racing as I went on exuding the old Good-time Charley from every pore. I hadn’t solved anything yet; she still had it.

“But you didn’t have to do that,” she said uncertainly.

“Hush,” I said, smiling. “I’m doing this. Suppose you wait outside and stop giving me so much trouble.”

“But why?”

“You’ll see.” I gave it the old masterful touch, taking her by the elbow and pointing her toward the door. She went on out, still not too sure about it.

The clerk had finished wrapping the bath oil and was getting my change. The F.B.I, man and the pharmacist had gone into the back. I glanced swiftly around, searching for something. It had to be small. Then I saw it in the showcase. That would do nicely.

“I’ll take one of those small bottles of Escapade,” I said to the clerk. “And gift-wrap it, please.”

I dropped it in my pocket and went out carrying the bath oil and the paper bag that held my shirt. She was putting her packages in the station wagon, across the street. I went over and set the bath oil in the seat and held the door open for her. She got in, and started to say something.

I shook my head at her and then looked down at my hands on the door. “Listen,” I said quietly. “On your way home, about two miles out of town, there’s a little road that turns off to the right in the trees. . . .”

“No,” she said. “I—I couldn’t.”

I raised my eyes to hers then. “Please,” I said earnestly. “I only want to talk to you. Just this once, and I’ll never ask it of you again.”

She hesitated. She wanted to, but any time they did this sort of thing in a soap opera it bitched up the works in a frightful fashion.

“Don’t say anything now,” I said. Just think about it. I think you’ll see there’s no harm in it. I did want very badly just to talk to you for a few minutes. If you’re there, it’ll be wonderful; if you’re not—well. . . .” I spread my hands in a gesture of resignation and went back to the car. She drove off.

I lit a cigarette and waited about five minutes. Taking out my wallet, I checked to be sure I had a twenty. I had three. Selecting the crispest and newest, I slid it in my trousers pocket with the small bottle of perfume.

I drove back out of town and turned right on the road toward Javier. She’d better be there; if she weren’t, I was in a hell of a jam and had to think of something else, but fast. The next time she took that twenty out of her purse, anywhere within a hundred miles, the F.B.I, was going to fall on her like a brick wall. Where’d it come from, anyway? It was the last one, of course, but I’d checked then cash-box three times. Probably in her purse all the while, I thought. That hadn’t occurred to me.

I came to the side road and swung into it. It was a pair of sandy ruts leading off through heavy pine. I couldn’t be sure, but there didn’t appear to be any fresh tire tracks in them. I came around a bend where there was a small open space in the shade of two large trees by a stream and when I didn’t see the station wagon I knew I’d lost. She wouldn’t have gone past here. Just to make certain, however, I got out and examined the ruts. Nobody had been through here for days. I cursed the perversity of all women. What was the matter with her? Did she think I was Jack-the-Ripper?

Well, what now? Come up with something, pal, and hurry. I stopped then, and turned. A car was coming down the road behind me. I sighed wearily. Well, they always had to dramatize everything.

She stopped and I walked over to the car. “I came back,” she said. “I shouldn’t have. But just this once . . .”

I opened the door and slid in under the wheel; she moved over to let me in. It was very quiet out through the trees. I put my elbow on the back of the seat and turned a little, facing her. She was staring through the windshield. I reached out and put the tip of one finger under her chin and turned her face, very slowly and gently, until it was just under mine. For a minute I didn’t say anything; I merely continued to look into her eyes, and then at the rest of her face, and finally at her eyes again. She started to say something.

I beat her to it. “I know,” I said quietly.

“We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“That’s what I mean,” I said. “We’re both married, and we’ve got no right to. But I just had to tell you—just this once and probably never again—how lovely you are. And that I think you’re very, very nice.”

“You do?”

I smiled faintly. “What do you think?”

Then I went on, “It’s a strange thing, but a while ago when that phone rang, I was thinking of you. You don’t know what it was like, picking it up and hearing your voice.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t tell you this, she said. “But I was hoping I’d see you again. That’s pretty awful, isn’t it?”

“No,” I said.

“But it is. And we can’t do it again.”

“Not ever?”

“No. You know that, Barney.”

I didn’t even know she knew my first name, or how she’d learned it.

“It’s not much fun, is it?” I asked.

“And this isn’t helping things any.”

“I know. You’re right, of course. It’s crazy, any way you look at it.”

“I’d better go,” she said dully.

“Right now?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes. Please. . . .”

“All right,” I said reluctantly. “But first I want to give you something.”

“I don’t think you should.”

“Hush,” I said. “It doesn’t amount to anything. I’ll put it in your purse, and you can just pretend you found it there, if you want to. But maybe you’ll remember me when you use it.”

The purse was lying in the seat on the other side of her. I reached over and picked it up. “Close your eyes,” I said.

She closed them. I opened the purse. The twenty was still loose in it, outside the billfold. I slipped it out quickly and replaced it with the one from my pocket. I dropped in the little gift-wrapped box containing the bottle of perfume, closed the purse, and set it in her lap.

“Now?” she asked.

“Almost,” I said. I put my hands up on each side of her face and kissed her very gently on the lips. “Now.”

She put her hands up over mine, pressing against them.

Her eyes opened. “I’ve got to go,” she whispered. “I’ve got to, Barney, please . . .”

. . . all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell,” I said, softly. Oh, knock it off you lousy ham, I thought. You’ve got the twenty? what do you want to do, make a production of it?

“What is?” she asked.

“Parting,” I said.

“Is it a poem?”

“Yes,” I said. “Maybe it’s not the parting she had in mind, but it can be rough enough.”

“Good-bye,” she said.

“All right.” I kissed her again, and this time she cracked a little. She put her arms up about my neck and clung tightly for just an instant before she began pushing me away.

“You’d better get out now,” she said, and there was a slight edge of raggedness to her voice. I wasn’t getting off so lightly myself, after that deal last night, and I wondered what the percentage was in beating my brains out this way after I’d already accomplished the mission. Well, you had to follow through and lend it a certain amount of verisimilitude. I got out, a little awkwardly under the circumstances, and closed the door.