I was just killing time, and Beth knew it. I could feel her staring at me, wondering what I was going to say.
There was a narrow, single-lane graveled road that meandered all the way around the lake, and now and then a deep-rutted spur that wandered off to a dead end at some abandoned farm. I put the car in gear and started across the dam, dunking vaguely that the cabin idea wasn't a bad one, at that. Maybe Paula and I would get ourselves one sometime. It would take some money, of course, but Old Man Provo and his box factory were going to furnish that.
After we hit the lake road we had to take it easy. It was dark, and the road crawled crazily in and out of wild-looking blackjack thickets, and you had to watch for cars parked here and there along the road. High-school kids.
About halfway around the lake I pulled my Chevy onto one of those abandoned farm roads and snapped out the lights. I looked at Beth, then lit a cigarette and sat back in the seat. There was tightness around her mouth, a determined look in her eyes.
“Joe.”
I looked at her.
“Joe, what's wrong? Something is wrong, isn't there? You've hardly said a word since we left the house.”
I didn't know how to say it. Goddamnit, I thought, I should have just called her on the telephone and told her it was all over. She moved over next to me, and I was the stiff one now, and cold.
“Joe...”
“Yes?”
“What is it, Joe? Can't you tell me?”
The situation was ridiculous, and being ridiculous made me mad. “Christ,” I said, “do I have to spell it out for you? We're not getting anywhere, that's all, and your old man thinks we ought to knock it off.” I looked straight ahead, through the windshield. “I think so, too.”
She did nothing for several seconds, sitting very erect, clenching her hands in her lap. Then, finally: “Joe, is it someone else? I know what my father thinks, and it isn't important, but is it someone else?”
“Now, who else would it be?” I said wearily. “If I'd found someone else, it would be all over Creston by now and you know it.”
“But... there must be a reason!”
“I told you,” I said. “We're not getting anywhere. And I'm tired of not getting anywhere, tired of Creston, tired of those lousy tourist shacks. I'm leaving this country, Beth, and everything in it. It's as simple as that.”
“Is it, Joe?”
“Now, what's that supposed to mean? Of course it's as simple as that. I'm sick of it and I'm leaving it.”
“And me, Joe?” A very tight voice. “What about me?”
Good Lord, I thought, what do you have to say to a woman like this?
I said, “It's over. If there was ever anything to begin with. That's what I'm trying to tell you. It's over.”
She didn't believe me. Womanlike, she couldn't believe that after all this time she was being dumped. Behind it all, she probably believed that my motivations were noble and gallant, because she couldn't make herself believe that I was simply sick of her and that was the whole story.
Then she did a hell of a thing. You had to know Beth to understand what a hell of a thing it was. Suddenly she had her arms around my neck and was pressing herself against me, and there was absolutely no mistake about what she had in her mind. This was her one big weapon—the one weapon that all nice girls like Beth hold onto to the bitter end, hoping that they'll never have to use it but firmly convinced that it will gain them their ends, a ring and marriage certificate, if the time should ever come.
It left me completely cold. Instantly, Paula was in my brain again, and nothing in the world that Beth could do could stir me. I reached for the switch and snapped it on.
“You might as well go on saving it,” I said. “But for somebody else.”
Chapter Four
The fourteenth was a long time coming that July. The days dragged as I stood in the station doorway watching the traffic go past, thinking: Maybe the next car will be that Buick, maybe the Sheldons will come early to make sure there are no slip-ups.
Then I'd get to thinking: Maybe they won't come back at all. Maybe something happened and they decided to call the whole thing off.
What would I do then? They had to come! I couldn't stand this lousy place much longer. I couldn't stand this flea-bitten service station. I wanted to feel that money in my pocket. I wanted Paula close to me, where I could reach out and touch her.
Meanwhile, I was alone. That business with Beth at the lake—Lord, I hope I never get into a mess like that again. She cried. She didn't say a single word, just lay there with great tears streaming down that pale, pinched face of hers. I had hated her at the time, but now I felt nothing. I hadn't heard a word from Bern since that night. I knew I never would.
Now there was the robbery to be thought about. I wasn't worried about Manley and Sheldon; I was holding all the cards. If they pulled the robbery, there was no way they could keep me out of it. And they would pull it, all right, because Paula would have it no other way.
Still, I was taking no chances.
On the thirteenth I decided to do something that I should have done at the very beginning. I was going over that box factory with a fine-tooth comb. I wasn't going to rely on Bunt Manley.
I thought: This is going to look damn funny, Hooper. You haven't been near that factory since you stopped working there. Is this going to be smart, sticking your nose into things the day before the robbery?
Smart or not, I couldn't take chances on something going wrong. And about that time I remembered Pat Sully—good old Pat Sully, who had loaned me five dollars six months ago and had probably kissed it good-by long since.
Well, Pat was going to get a surprise, because I was going to pay him back, and I was going to pay him back because he happened to be a bookkeeper for Max Provo and did his work in the factory's front office, which was exactly the place I wanted to visit.
About three that afternoon I turned the station over to Ike Abrams and took the Chevy into town. The factory was north and west of town, sprawled out on the red slope of a clay bill. There were two main buildings, two-story red-brick affairs, connected by a plank runway at the second-story level.
One building was the factory itself, where the boxes were made, and that one didn't interest me at all. The other was a conglomeration of warehouse-garage-storeroom-office, and this one interested me plenty.
I parked the Chevy in the company parking space at the west side of the factory, got out, and started walking around to where the front office was. There was a good deal of activity at the loading ramp, where two big semis were backed up to be loaded. Sweating roustabouts formed an endless chain with their loaded dollies, warehouse to trailer and back again, working like so many ants around an anthill. I had been one of those ants once. Never again. The office itself was a busy place and not much to look at. It was just one big room, the working space partitioned off by wooden railings. Truck drivers and warehousemen were coming and going, and some of them were trying to make themselves heard over the noise of typewriters-and adding machines. There were maybe a dozen girls on one side of the room, filing things, typing letters, or whatever they do in an office like that; and on the other side of the room the bookkeepers and department managers were going about their business and ignoring everything else.
The temperature must have been a hundred in that room. No air-conditioning, not even an electric fan. Those things cost money, and anything that cost money wasn't for Max Provo.
I had been in that office a hundred times or more, but this time I really looked at it. There was a big double door at the back of the office; one of the doors was open— for better ventilation—and I could look into the warehouse, on the other side of the plyboard partition. Nothing had changed since I had worked here. Everything was the same, but this time I was taking a picture of it in my mind.