Shirley Murphy - The Cat, the Devil, and Lee Fontana

“Won’t be this crowded for long,” the pudgy man was saying, “just until the new building’s up.” He shifted his weight as if his feet hurt. “Right now, you’d have to drive across into Arizona for the nearest bank. Not far, just to Parker. But it’s easier to do business this way.”

The line edged forward and they moved with it, Lee trying not to show his excitement. “That’s a bummer, you have to go into Arizona to cash your paycheck.”

“Oh, no. Folk here don’t get paychecks. The pay, everything we do in this town, is pretty much on a cash basis. Most of the farmworkers are paid with cash. Same with the mining company. Payroll comes in by mail on the last train. Fridays, this place is like Fort Knox. They shut the front doors but the small operators come in that way. Foremen from the big outfits, most of them come around the back, from ranches and mines from all over, to pick up their cash so they can pay their men the next morning.” The man seemed innocent enough in imparting the information. And why not, it was obviously common knowledge. Lee watched man after man, likely local businessmen and independent ranchers, approach the counter pulling out fat rolls of bills. The man ahead of him, dark hair slicked back, peeled off three one-hundred-dollar bills and two fifties as casually as Lee would flip out a quarter for a beer. When it was Lee’s turn at the counter, he had to grin as he asked for four more stamped envelopes, thinking that in some way he might need them—and giving him time for a closer look at the stacks of money behind the counter, money he coveted.

Leaving the post office, he strolled along the outside of the building, looking more closely at the layout. The burned-out bank was on his left, facing the street. Beyond that was a vacant lot, then a cheap two-story apartment house. On the other side of the post office, a small hardware store, boxed in by adjoining stores, dry goods, a dime store, used furniture. When he walked around behind the solid row of buildings he found a narrow dirt alley running their length, with access to half a dozen back doors, including the heavy post office door with its barred window on each side. Just the simple snap lock on the outside, giving no indication of the big padlock concealed within. Across the alley stood an old wooden building that he thought might be storage for the hardware store, a stack of empty wooden nail boxes was piled by the back step. Behind that were more vacant lots, then a line of willows, then the empty desert stretching away.

He returned to the main street thinking about the moves it would take to bring off a robbery here, and about Mark Triple and his duster plane. He had seen Mark again on Saturday, loading up to dust another run of melon fields, and Mark had kidded him about trying a flight. The young pilot was flying up to L.A. in a few days, before he headed for the East Coast, he said he needed to get some work done on the prop. He had invited Lee to go along, and Lee, with the same flash of certainty that had led him to James Dawson, had eagerly accepted. Strange how things fell into place. Seemed like all his life, he’d fallen into situations which, most of the time, turned to his benefit, fitting right in with the plans he’d already started putting together.

Thinking of his possible moves in L.A., he paced the length of Blythe again. Even here in the center of town the desert wind brought the stink of the big cattle-feeding yards that lay outside of Blythe, with their modern feed mills and storage tanks. Thinking about that wealth, the wealth he knew lay in the big farms, and the cash he had seen in the post office, he stopped in a small grocery for a pack of gum, stood unwrapping a piece of Doublemint, smiling at the white-haired old man behind the counter. Old, Lee thought. Older than me but still working all day every day for a two-bit living.

“Someone told me there was some kind of airstrip here, just outside town. Not the commercial airport, some little dirt landing strip, they thought. Said they saw a little plane land somewhere on the other side of town,” he said, pointing. “I thought that was kind of strange.”

The old man laughed. “Could of seen a plane, all right. There’s an emergency airstrip some eighteen miles east of town. Lies just where the road runs in from Jamesfarm. Sometimes a rancher or the gypsum mining company use it.” He jerked a thumb to the east. “Out on Furnace Road. Old, fallen-down barn near it, migrants camp there some.”

Lee made small talk for a few minutes, then touched the brim of his hat and left. Walking back out to the auction site, he felt almost good enough to do a jig. His scenario was shaping up real well. The sun was settling low, casting the mountains’ shadows long across the bare desert. The temperature, though evening was nearing, had dropped maybe all of two degrees.

He found Jake looking at the tires of a big drilling truck. From his grin, Lee figured he’d bought it. “They threw in a bunch of drilling rods,” Jake said, “and I didn’t have to bid as much as I thought. Come on, I’m dry as dust.”

They headed for the same small Mexican restaurant, the jukebox playing loud and brassy, the tables crowded with groups of men talking and arguing, drinking cold beer and tying into their early suppers. Lee and Jake wedged into the last table, in the far corner, soon easing the heat with icy beer as they ordered a good hot Mexican dinner. Outside the windows the light continued to soften; but the noisy din in the small room, the loud conversations, half Spanish, half English, mixed with the loud Mexican brass from a record player, soon began to pound in their heads. They didn’t talk much, they could only half hear each other, and they were glad at last to be out on the street again ready to head home. At the red pickup, Lee eased into the driver’s seat, watching Jake step into the drilling rig. He followed Jake’s taillights at a good distance as they headed away up the narrow, bumpy road.

23

It was the same afternoon that Brad Falon came to Morgan’s shop asking him to look at his stalled Mustang, that Sammie became sick at school. She grew lethargic and cranky in class, and when she started falling asleep at her desk, the school nurse called Becky. When Becky picked her up, Sammie crawled into the car yawning and dull. Becky felt her face for fever but Sammie was ice-cold, her skin pale and clammy. “Does your head hurt?”

“No,” Sammie said drowsily.

“Do you hurt anywhere?”

“No.” Sammie sighed and snuggled closer. By the time they got home she was sound asleep. Becky managed to wake her, and half carried her inside. She got her settled on the couch, pulled off Sammie’s skirt and blouse, and examined her carefully all over for spider bites or bee or wasp stings. She could find no blemish. She parted Sammie’s hair with her fingers, searching for a bite there, feeling for any painful area. Sammie complained of the cold, her whole body was chilled through, though the day was hot. When Becky took her temperature, it was lower than it had been at school, a full degree below normal. She covered Sammie with a warm blanket, thinking she’d wait just a little while before calling the doctor, to see what developed. The nurse had said they had five children out with the flu. She made a glass of hot lemonade, and went to fetch the aspirin. When she returned, Sammie was asleep again.

But it seemed to be a normal sleep, she was breathing easily. Becky set the glass on the coffee table, stood watching Sammie for a few minutes and then, straightening the cover over her, she left her sleeping. She stayed near to Sammie, working at the dining table on the dry-goods books, looking up often at Sammie, and rising to feel her face. The child slept deeply; Becky woke her at suppertime but she wasn’t hungry or thirsty. She didn’t want to eat, didn’t want the thermometer in her mouth again but Becky managed to persuade her. Her temperature was lower, 96.4. Sammie was still so groggy she turned away from Becky’s hug and was asleep again. It was then, turning away to the phone, that Becky called the doctor. When she gave Dr. Bates Sammie’s symptoms and temperature, he said it sounded like the bug that was going around. He said to keep her warm, not to give her any more aspirin, to get plenty of liquids down her, and to call him back in an hour.