Mrs. Goudeket tottered into the marble lobby of the schoolhouse. A
flaring pressure lamp threw grotesque shadows against the polished
walls and the room was almost empty. Some men dozed over their card
tables and desks. Outside the last of the ambulance-fitted six-by-sixes
was rolling noisily away with the last of the casualties.
Chief Brayer's head snapped up from a nodding doze as she cleared her
throat.
"Chief?" Mrs. Goudeket said timidly. "Just a few hours since I asked,
but I think things have changed a lot, hah?"
He focused on her with difficulty and said at last, "Oh. The lady from
the hotel."
"Goudeket's Green Acres," she said automatically, with pride. "I was
thinking that now maybe things are more under control, hah? So maybe
you could spare me a car, some gas. I have to get back, look over my
property--" If it still is my property, the thought came, unwelcome.
"A car?"
Mrs. Goudeket was exasperated. "You heard. A car! Look, if it makes you
feel better, I could take some people with me. You need shelter? I have
room. Believe me, by now I bet I have more room than you can imagine.
We have food, too." Food for the booked-solid week, which would now be
a week of hundred-per-cent cancellations and empty tables.
Chief Brayer looked wearily interested. "Yes," he said absently, "you
would have food. All right. I yelled at you before, didn't I? I'm
sorry--"
She shrugged. "No apologies, please. Your language--But you meant well.
You were busy."
"We needed the cars," he said doggedly. "We had to keep them for an
emergency, you see. That's all that counted. In case there was a fire
or a burglary, the cars had to be here."
"Don't explain. Please, do I get a car? I'll be careful. I could write
out a check, leave a deposit--" She had almost said five hundred
dollars. "A hundred dollars?"
"Don't have to." Like a man in a slow-motion movie he hauled a memo pad
across the desk, hoisted a pen from his uniform coat pocket. He wrote
painfully. "Give this to Mr. Cioni--you know where the cars are? Across
the street? All right. How far do you have to go?"
She threw up her hands. "Who knows? Always before it was seventeen
miles. Now we have to go around and around--who knows?" There was an
edge to her voice.
"Tell him I said to give you a half a tank of gas."
"Thank you," said Mrs. Goudeket.
Across the street, three trucks and four pleasure cars, one of them
with the tires flat. The motor pool. A civilian in charge, and in the
back a national guardsman with a gun.
The man in charge of the motor pool studied the note with a flashlight
whose beam was fading to orange. He looked at her doubtfully. "You
going to drive it?"
"Don't worry, mister," she snapped. "Do you want to see my license?"
"Me? Nah." He pottered over to a '47 Dodge sedan and copied the plate
number on the chief's note. "Give me your address, lady?"
She did. He copied it down with the license number. "Sign," he said,
and she did. Mr. Cioni copied the data onto another sheet, signed it
and carefully put the original chit in his pocket. He gave her his
copy. "This is your trip ticket," he said. "In case you get stopped by
a state trooper, this proves you didn't steal the car. We hope."
Now garrulous, he added: "She's yours. I don't know if this is legal,
but it makes sense, doesn't it? At least we got records. After things
are straightened out I guess somebody'll get in touch with you to
return the car."
She misread his fatigue and his nerves as suspicion. She said
haughtily, "Young fella, at Goudeket's Green Acres we have a fleet of
late-model cars and station wagons. And to be very frank with you, if
a guest should drive up in a forty-seven car in this condition, the
room clerk would discover that his reservation had not been received,
believe me." Almost she believed it, in the heat of the moment. Almost
Goudeket's Green Acres was the Concord or the Grossinger's they had
meant it for.
The aspersion passed clean through the weary ears of Mr. Cioni.
"I guess that's right," he said. "Good luck."
"Please, you should give me a half a tank of gas. Mr. Brayer said so."
She looked pointedly at the stack of jerry cans that had been dumped by
one of the quartermaster trucks.
Mr. Cioni wearily climbed into the car, snapped on the dash light and
turned the key. The gas needle stayed on zero. Mrs. Goudeket inhaled
triumphantly.
He banged the dial with the heel of his hand and watched it creep
joltingly up to the halfway mark. He said to nobody, "I know these
babies." He said to Mrs. Goudeket, "You got your half a tank. Good
luck."
She said, "Watch nobody else takes my car, will you? I'll get my
friends."
Her feet were killing her. Across the street, back into the
schoolhouse, up the stairs.
* * * * *
She hiked wearily into the deserted "quiet ward," where Polly Chesbro
was sprawled on one stained cot and Dick McCue, looking like the
returned stray cat he was, on another.