“Somebody stole it,” Johnny said drily. “Some deadbeat.”
“The police will be after me about it,” whined Binney. “It ain’t right.”
“It ain’t right — that you turned us in.” Johnny signaled to Sam. “Well, we’ve got to be going.”
“Wait a minute,” said Sam. “We can’t leave here and let...” he nodded to Binney.
Johnny sighed. “I suppose you’ll grab the phone and call the cops the minute we leave.”
“Oh, no!”
Johnny nodded. “I believe you, but just the same...” He stepped to a closet door and opened it. Then he turned back to Binney. “Got a key for this?”
“I’ll smother in there.”
“There’s a half inch crack under the door. You get your face down to it and you can stay there a week... We need a head start.”
He held out his hand. Reluctantly Binney reached into his pocket and brought out a ring of keys. Johnny took the ring and herded Binney into the closet. He closed the door and locked it with one of the keys. Then he dropped the ring on the table.
Sam Cragg rapped tentatively on the door. “He’ll break that down in two minutes.”
“You might, but he’ll need a half hour. Which is all the start we can expect.”
Johnny started for the door, then caught sight of a road map tacked to the wall. He ripped it down, folded and stuffed it in his pocket. On his way out he picked up a flashlight lying on a stand.
Two minutes later, with Sam Cragg at the wheel, they were rolling out of San Bernardino. Leaving the lights of the city behind them Johnny took the road map from his pocket and turned the flashlight on it. He studied the map intently for a couple of minutes. Then he shook his head.
“There’re two quick ways out of California from here,” he said. “One, really, up to Barstow — the main drag. But at Barstow you can cut straight across Highway 66 to Needles, and Kingman in Arizona. It’s the shorter, but tougher way. The other way is to take Highway 91 at Barstow, to Las Vegas, Boulder Dam and then to Kingman. It’s a few miles longer than through Needles, but actually you can make better time, because the mountains aren’t bad... A man’d be crazy to take any other road, if he was in a hurry to leave the state.”
Sam Cragg scowled. “So?”
“So we’re crazy. Binney’ll get out of that closet in a few minutes. He’ll call the cops and they’ll telephone to Barstow. We might beat them through Barstow, but they’d get us somewhere along the stretch between Barstow and Las Vegas or Barstow and Needles.” He sighed. “We got practically a tank full of gas and they don’t know our license number — yet, so I guess we go up to Mojave, along Death Valley and into Nevada — about three hundred miles out of our way.”
“The hard way,” said Sam Cragg sarcastically. “Well, hold onto your hat.”
Chapter Twelve
At six in the morning, Johnny Fletcher, who had been driving the last two hundred miles, braked the car to a stop in front of a restaurant and nudged Sam Cragg who was dozing fitfully beside him.
“Breakfast time!”
Sam Cragg groaned and opened his eyes. He twisted himself and winced as cramped muscles protested. “Are we still in California?” he asked.
“The sign says it’s Tonapah, Nevada — but it looks just like all the other towns we passed through the last two hundred miles.”
They got out of the car and went into the restaurant. It was a long narrow room with a counter running down one side and a row of slot machines down the other.
“Yeah,” said Johnny, “it’s Nevada.”
He took a quarter from his pocket, dropped it into the nearest slot machine, pulled down the lever and continued on to a stool. The slot machine whirred, there was a click... and a stream of quarters poured down the slot into the cup. Two or three spilled overboard and hit the floor. Johnny was off the stool and in a single bound reached the slot machine.
He scooped out quarters, picked up the ones that had spilled on the floor. He began counting them. “Twenty quarters — five bucks,” he announced after a moment to the dumbfounded Sam Cragg. “How long has this been going on?”
“It happens all the time,” said the waiter behind the counter. “Somethin’ wrong with that machine. Fella came in here yesterday, put in a quarter and hit the jackpot... Got seventy-four bucks.”
Johnny was already putting a quarter into the machine.
Ten minutes later he climbed back on the stool at the counter, a wiser, sadder man. He had fed back the twenty quarters, originally won, and another twelve dollars.
“When we get out of here,” he said to Sam Cragg, “kick me where it hurts.”
“I think you’re wrong to quit now,” Sam said. “The jackpot’s just about full. The next quarter might tip it.”
“Ahrrr!” He signaled to the waiter. “Let’s have that coffee now.”
“Sure,” said the waiter. “Would you be interested in rolling the bones? The cook’s going off duty in five minutes and he likes a game before he goes home.” He grinned apologetically. “On account of the places are only open nights and he works at night and don’t get a chance to gamble.”
“Twelve bucks for a coffee is good enough for me,” Johnny retorted. “As a matter of fact, I’m thinking of starting a petition to outlaw gambling in the state of Nevada.”
“They do that,” said the waiter, “and we’ll close up this place. What do you think we make our money on here?” He pointed at the slot machines.
He brought the coffee, so black and strong that the thin milk he set out did no more than lighten it two or three shades.
...At noon Johnny was swinging the Chevrolet around the beautiful grades just south of Boulder Dam. For twenty minutes it was like riding a roller coaster — up a steep grade, down, around a curve, then another. But suddenly the car rolled down the last grade and the black macadam road stretched ahead like a black ribbon down the straightest, flattest, longest stretch of road Johnny and Sam had ever seen-fifty-some miles, to Kingman. Now, Johnny really let out the Chevrolet — seventy-five miles an hour, eighty and even eighty-five.
The little car ate up the miles. By six o’clock they were in Phoenix. They had dinner at a small restaurant, then climbed into the car, turned on the headlights and started for Tucson.
At eleven-thirty Tuscon was behind them, but Johnny Fletcher was about ready to throw in the sponge. He had slept only fitfully the night before, during the times that Sam Cragg drove. He was even relieved therefore, when a clanking somewhere in the innards of the Chevrolet promised a forced halt to their journey. But it was ten minutes before they saw a light ahead and the clanking by that time had become serious.
He tooled the car into the little wayside filling station which showed a light.
He and Sam got out of the car and for a moment the car and the filling station seemed to swirl around him. Then his head cleared and he started for the door of the station. The light, he saw now, was not in the station itself, but in a room behind it.
He tried the door of the station and discovered it was locked. He rattled the doorknob, then pounded on the door. The clamor produced no results.
Behind Johnny, Sam muttered under his breath. It sounded something like, “God-damn country.”
“The country’s all right,” snarled Johnny. “It’s the people in it.” He took a deep breath and yelled suddenly: “Hey, wake up, inside!”
Sam began kicking at the door.
A figure finally appeared in the doorway of the room behind the station.
“Whaddya want?” it asked in a voice perfectly audible.
“Some service,” Johnny yelled back.
The man inside shook his head. “Place is closed for the night.”