Charles Williams - Girl Out Back

When I went upstairs, got a suitcase out of the hall closet, and carried it into the bedroom, I found why she was still gone. A note was pinned to the pillow on what had been my side of the bed until I’d move to the den. Nice touch, I thought; Clausewitz couldn’t have improved on it. If I never did see it, it wasn’t her fault.

“Just in case you might possibly be interested,” it said, “I have gone to Sanport for a week at the beach. Don’t forget to put out the cat. Or cats.”

Well, that was fine. Except for Otis at the store, there was nobody who would be likely to notice or be curious about my movements now until the whole thing was finished. And I could take care of Otis all right. I put the open leather bag on the bed and turned to the closet. Selecting a conservative, tropical-weight suit, I folded it, hanger and all, into the bag.

Well, maybe she had friends down there. Some girl, maybe, who’d gone to school with her and later married a man named Kleinfelter who was in the cotton brokerage business. Sit on the beach and cut up old touches—that sort of thing. Who cared?

Let’s see. White shirt, cuff-links, blue tie. There was room to put in the soft straw hat without crushing it.

Kleinfelter himself would be five-seven and bald, and never talk about anything but the tax structure. And, anyway, it was Mrs. Kleinfelter she’d gone to school with. Remember those silly pajama parties? Remember that creepy Rowbottom boy, the one whose ears stuck straight out from the side of his head . . . “

For Christ’s sake, I thought; what do I care what she went to Sanport for, or who she knows down there? We’re washed up, we’re not even sleeping together any more, and what she does is her own business.

She wouldn’t, anyway. She didn’t go in for that sort of thing. So maybe she did have all the dulcet amiability of a maladjusted camel when she got her back up and started going elemental and bitchily female all over the place, she still wouldn’t . . .

No?

Well, look, stupid; it took you sixty days, and you’re no muscle-headed beach boy. You’re an operator.

But that was different. She’s sore now; she’s boiling. She’s furious. She could raid a Sea Scout encampment, out of sheer spite.

I took the suitcase out and put it in the back of the station wagon, covering it with a couple of old blankets and a kapok life-belt so it wouldn’t be seen.

It was lonely being all by myself in the house, and I was a long time getting to sleep. Just combat fatigue. I thought; I was up there too long.

Early in the morning I dressed in dacron slacks and an Egyptian-cotton sports shirt and left the house bareheaded. I had some breakfast in town and drove over to the store.

When Otis came in, I said, “Think I’ll be out this afternoon. There are a couple of good prospects down in Exeter who could use a fresh sales wheeze, and I want to talk to the advertising manager of the radio station about those spot announcements he’s trying to sell us.”

“Fine,” he said. “Maybe you could work up a good singing commercial. Let’s see . . . How about Outboard motors, for happy boaters?”

“You’re a hell of an advertising man,” I said. “You forgot the sponsor’s name. Look. Bring your signorina to Godwin’s marina—”

“Tell me when to cry.”

“Shut up. —She’ll give her all in a Godwin yawl—”

“That’s a sailboat.”

“Well, that’s what we’re talking about, Abbott. Boat sales. Yuk, yuk, yuk. You had enough?”

“You win,” he said. “I’d rather work.”

He went back to the shop.

Business was slow, and it was a long morning. I was impatient and nervous now, wanting to get started. Around eleven the telephone rang while I was in the office. Otis was up front, so he answered it.

“For you, boss,” he called.

I went out. He gave me a quizzical glance as he handed me the instrument, but said nothing. He turned and walked away, rather pointedly, I thought.

It was Jewel Nunn. If she kept calling here I was going to have to stay nearer the phone.

“How are you?” I asked. “I was thinking of you.”

Why? I asked myself. What the devil was I supposed to be selling now?

“I just wanted to thank you for the bottle of perfume,” she said softly.

“Where are you?” I asked, knowing very well where she was.

“At Hampstead, at the drug store. I had to come in to do some errands. . . .”

I thought of a good out first, and then said, “Well, listen, can’t I drive down?”

“I don’t think you’d better. . . .”

“It would only take a minute.”

We-ell—I mean, do you think . . . No. No, you just can t.”

“But I want to see you. . .” I broke off, and then said, “Wait, how long will you be there?”

“Just a little while. I have to go to Exeter.”

“Oh,” I said, disappointed. “I have to see this prospect at twelve. Man I’ve been trying to get hold of for a month. But maybe. . . .”

“No. I mean, I just wanted to thank you.”

“It was nothing. You deserve much nicer things than that.”

“Good-bye,” she said. She hung up.

Otis went to lunch early, and while he was gone I put an empty two-gallon fuel can in the back of the station wagon, under the blankets, checking at the same time to be sure I had a wrench. When he returned I gathered up the briefcase containing the boat literature and started out.

“Hold it down,” I said. “I probably won’t be back till after closing time.”

I drove fast, going down to Hampstead and cutting across to State 41, and was in Exeter in less than an hour. I knew she was ahead of me, going to the same place, and hoped I didn’t run into her. I parked in the square and made my calls, getting them out of the way as rapidly as possible. One of the prospects, an attorney, was out of town, but I left some brochures with his secretary. The other was a minor bank official, and busy, so I cut the pitch to five minutes, and went to see the huckster.

We kicked the spot commercial around for about twenty minutes, and I told him I’d have to take it home and incubate a few days before I finalized. He was an earnest young type fresh out of school, and while he was translating me into English I left. Just as I was getting into the car I saw her going along the street with some bundles in her arm. She looked very nice and erect and young. She didn’t see me.

I drove on out of town. It was twenty minutes after two on a hot August afternoon. If everything went well, I was going to make over a hundred thousand dollars in the next four hours.

Ten

I turned off 41 into the short access road, hoping anxiously there wouldn’t be any fishermen down there today. The chances of it were slight, however, since it was Monday. When I came around the last turn in the twisting pair of ruts and saw the camp-ground and snatches of the sheet-metal glare of the water through the trees I breathed softly in relief. It was as deserted and silent as the upper reaches of the Orinoco.

I got out and surveyed a route through the timber and then backed the station wagon over it until I was a good hundred yards from the road. Taking the wrench and the two-gallon can, I crawled under the back and removed the drain-plug at the bottom of the gasoline tank. I filled the can and then let the rest run out and soak into the ground. When the tank was completely dry, I replaced the drain-plug and poured about a quart back into it from the can. If the car would start at all, the fuel pump should be able to pick up enough to run it for possibly a mile, and perhaps almost to the highway.

Capping the can tightly, I carried it a short distance away and hid it in some underbrush, noting the location carefully so I could find it again, in the dark if I had to. I got back in the seat and pressed the starter. The engine took hold promptly. I drove back to the road and parked just off it, facing toward the highway and far enough back from the camp-ground to be out of sight of anyone going past in a boat.