At a lunch wagon down near the water front, Bud stopped and bought two
“hot dog” sandwiches and a mug of hot coffee boiled with milk in it
and sweetened with three cubes of sugar. “O-oh, boy!” he ejaculated
gleefully when he set his teeth into biscuit and hot hamburger. Leaning
back luxuriously in the big car, he ate and drank until he could eat and
drink no more. Then, with a bag of bananas on the seat beside him, he
drove on down to the mole, searching through the drizzle for the big
gum sign which Foster had named. Just even with the coughing engine of
a waiting through train he saw it, and backed in against the curb,
pointing the car's radiator toward the mainland. He had still half an
hour to wait, and he buttoned on the curtains of the car, since a wind
from across the bay was sending the drizzle slantwise; moreover it
occurred to him that Foster would not object to the concealment while
they were passing through Oakland. Then he listlessly ate a banana while
he waited.
The hoarse siren of a ferryboat bellowed through the murk. Bud started
the engine, throttled it down to his liking, and left it to warm up for
the flight. He ate another banana, thinking lazily that he wished he
owned this car. For the first time in many a day his mind was not filled
and boiling over with his trouble. Marie and all the bitterness she had
come to mean to him receded into the misty background of his mind and
hovered there, an indistinct memory of something painful in his life.
A street car slipped past, bobbing down the track like a duck sailing
over ripples. A local train clanged down to the depot and stood jangling
its bell while it disgorged passengers for the last boat to the City
whose wall of stars was hidden behind the drizzle and the clinging fog.
People came straggling down the sidewalk--not many, for few had business
with the front end of the waiting trains. Bud pushed the throttle up a
little. His fingers dropped down to the gear lever, his foot snuggled
against the clutch pedal.
Feet came hurrying. Two voices mumbled together. “Here he is,” said one.
“That's the number I gave him.” Bud felt some one step hurriedly upon
the running board. The tonneau door was yanked open. A man puffed
audibly behind him. “Yuh ready?” Foster's voice hissed in Bud's ear.
“R'aring to go.” Bud heard the second man get in and shut the door, and
he jerked the gear lever into low. His foot came gently back with the
clutch, and the car slid out and away.
Foster settled back on the cushions with a sigh. The other man was
fumbling the side curtains, swearing under his breath when his fingers
bungled the fastenings.
“Everything all ready?” Foster's voice was strident with anxiety.
“Sure thing.”
“Well, head south--any road you know best. And keep going, till I tell
you to stop. How's the oil and gas?”
“Full up. Gas enough for three hundred miles. Extra gallon of oil in the
car. What d'yah want--the speed limit through town?”
“Nah. Side streets, if you know any. They might get quick action and
telephone ahead.”
“Leave it to me, brother.”
Bud did not know for sure, never having been pursued; but it seemed to
him that a straightaway course down a main street where other cars were
scudding homeward would be the safest route, because the simplest. He
did not want any side streets in his, he decided--and maybe run into a
mess of street-improvement litter, and have to back trail around it.
He held the car to a hurry-home pace that was well within the law, and
worked into the direct route to Hayward. He sensed that either Foster or
his friend turned frequently to look back through the square celluloid
window, but he did not pay much attention to them, for the streets were
greasy with wet, and not all drivers would equip with four skid chains.
Keeping sharp lookout for skidding cars and unexpected pedestrians and
street-car crossings and the like fully occupied Bud.
For all that, an occasional mutter came unheeded to his ears, the closed
curtains preserving articulate sounds like room walls.
“He's all right,” he heard Foster whisper once. “Better than if he was
in on it.” He did not know that Foster was speaking of him.
“--if he gets next,” the friend mumbled.
“Ah, quit your worrying,” Foster grunted. “The trick's turned; that's
something.”
Bud was under the impression that they were talking about father-in-law,
who had called Foster a careless hound; but whether they were or not
concerned him so little that his own thoughts never flagged in their
shuttle-weaving through his mind. The mechanics of handling the big car
and getting the best speed out of her with the least effort and risk,
the tearing away of the last link of his past happiness and his grief;
the feeling that this night was the real parting between him and Marie,
the real stepping out into the future; the future itself, blank beyond
the end of this trip, these were quite enough to hold Bud oblivious to
the conversation of strangers.
At dawn they neared a little village. Through this particular county the
road was unpaved and muddy, and the car was a sight to behold. The only
clean spot was on the windshield, where Bud had reached around once or
twice with a handful of waste and cleaned a place to see through. It was
raining soddenly, steadily, as though it always had rained and always
would rain.
Bud turned his face slightly to one side. “How about stopping; I'll have
to feed her some oil--and it wouldn't hurt to fill the gas tank again.
These heavy roads eat up a lot of extra power. What's her average
mileage on a gallon, Foster?”
“How the deuce should I know?” Foster snapped, just coming out of a
doze.
“You ought to know, with your own car--and gas costing what it does.”
“Oh!--ah--what was it you asked?” Foster yawned aloud. “I musta been
asleep.”
“I guess you musta been, all right,” Bud grunted. “Do you want breakfast
here, or don't you? I've got to stop for gas and oil; that's what I was
asking?”
The two consulted together, and finally told Bud to stop at the first
garage and get his oil and gas. After that he could drive to a drug
store and buy a couple of thermos bottles, and after that he could go to
the nearest restaurant and get the bottles filled with black coffee, and
have lunch put up for six people. Foster and his friend would remain in
the car.
Bud did these things, revising the plan to the extent of eating his own
breakfast at the counter in the restaurant while the lunch was being
prepared in the kitchen.
From where he sat he could look across at the muddy car standing before
a closed millinery-and-drygoods store. It surely did not look much like
the immaculate machine he had gloated over the evening before, but it
was a powerful, big brute of a car and looked its class in every line.
Bud was proud to drive a car like that. The curtains were buttoned down
tight, and he thought amusedly of the two men huddled inside, shivering
and hungry, yet refusing to come in and get warmed up with a decent
breakfast. Foster, he thought, must certainly be scared of his wife, if
he daren't show himself in this little rube town. For the first time Bud
had a vagrant suspicion that Foster had not told quite all there was to
tell about this trip. Bud wondered now if Foster was not going to meet
a “Jane” somewhere in the South. That terrifying Mann Act would account
for his caution much better than would the business deal of which Foster
had hinted.
Of course, Bud told himself while the waiter refilled his coffee cup, it
was none of his business what Foster had up his sleeve. He wanted to get
somewhere quickly and quietly, and Bud was getting him there. That was
all he need to consider. Warmed and once more filled with a sense of
well-being, Bud made himself a cigarette before the lunch was ready,
and with his arms full of food he went out and across the street. Just
before he reached the car one of the thermos bottles started to slide
down under his elbow. Bud attempted to grip it against his ribs, but the
thing had developed a slipperiness that threatened the whole load, so he
stopped to rearrange his packages, and got an irritated sentence or two
from his passengers.
“Giving yourself away like that! Why couldn't you fake up a mileage?
Everybody lies or guesses about the gas--”
“Aw, what's the difference? The simp ain't next to anything. He thinks I
own it.”
“Well, don't make the mistake of thinking he's a sheep. Once he--”
Bud suddenly remembered that he wanted something more from the
restaurant, and returned forth-with, slipping thermos bottle and all. He
bought two packages of chewing gum to while away the time when he could
not handily smoke, and when he returned to the car he went muttering
disapproving remarks about the rain and the mud and the bottles. He
poked his head under the front curtain and into a glum silence. The two
men leaned back into the two corners of the wide seat, with their heads
drawn down into their coat collars and their hands thrust under the
robe. Foster reached forward and took a thermos bottle, his partner
seized another.
“Say, you might get us a bottle of good whisky, too,” said Foster,
holding out a small gold piece between his gloved thumb and finger. “Be
quick about it though--we want to be traveling. Lord, it's cold!”
Bud went into a saloon a few doors up the street, and was back presently
with the bottle and the change. There being nothing more to detain them
there, he kicked some of the mud off his feet, scraped off the rest
on the edge of the running board and climbed in, fastening the curtain
against the storm. “Lovely weather,” he grunted sarcastically. “Straight
on to Bakersfield, huh?”
There was a minute of silence save for the gurgling of liquid running
out of a bottle into an eager mouth. Bud laid an arm along the back of
his seat and waited, his head turned toward them. “Where are you fellows
going, anyway?” he asked impatiently.
“Los An--” the stranger gurgled, still drinking.
“Yuma!” snapped Foster. “You shut up, Mert. I'm running this.”
“Better--”
“Yuma. You hit the shortest trail for Yuma, Bud. I'm running this.”
Foster seemed distinctly out of humor. He told Mert again to shut up,
and Mert did so grumblingly, but somewhat diverted and consoled, Bud
fancied, by the sandwiches and coffee--and the whisky too, he guessed.
For presently there was an odor from the uncorked bottle in the car.
Bud started and drove steadily on through the rain that never ceased.
The big car warmed his heart with its perfect performance, its smooth,
effortless speed, its ease of handling. He had driven too long and too
constantly to tire easily, and he was almost tempted to settle down to
sheer enjoyment in driving such a car. Last night he had enjoyed it, but
last night was not to-day.
He wished he had not overheard so much, or else had overheard more. He
was inclined to regret his retreat from the acrimonious voices as being
premature. Just why was he a simp, for instance? Was it because he
thought Foster owned the car? Bud wondered whether father-in-law had not
bought it, after all. Now that he began thinking from a different angle,
he remembered that father-in-law had behaved very much like the proud
possessor of a new car. It really did not look plausible that he would
come out in the drizzle to see if Foster's car was safely locked in for
the night. There had been, too, a fussy fastidiousness in the way the
robe had been folded and hung over the rail. No man would do that for
some other man's property, unless he was paid for it.
Wherefore, Bud finally concluded that Foster was not above helping
himself to family property. On the whole, Bud did not greatly disapprove
of that; he was too actively resentful of his own mother-in-law. He was
not sure but he might have done something of the sort himself, if his
mother-in-law had possessed a six-thousand-dollar car. Still, such a
car generally means a good deal to the owner, and he did not wonder that
Foster was nervous about it.
But in the back of his mind there lurked a faint dissatisfaction with
this easy explanation. It occurred to him that if there was going to
be any trouble about the car, he might be involved beyond the point of
comfort. After all, he did not know Foster, and he had no more reason
for believing Foster's story than he had for doubting. For all he knew,
it might not be a wife that Foster was so afraid of.
Bud was not stupid. He was merely concerned chiefly with his own
affairs--a common enough failing, surely. But now that he had thought
himself into a mental eddy where his own affairs offered no new impulse
toward emotion, he turned over and over in his mind the mysterious trip
he was taking. It had come to seem just a little too mysterious to suit
him, and when Bud Moore was not suited he was apt to do something about
it.
What he did in this case was to stop in Bakersfield at a garage that had
a combination drugstore and news-stand next door. He explained shortly
to his companions that he had to stop and buy a road map and that he
wouldn't be long, and crawled out into the rain. At the open doorway
of the garage he turned and looked at the car. No, it certainly did not
look in the least like the machine he had driven down to the Oakland
mole--except, of course, that it was big and of the same make. It might
have been empty, too, for all the sign it gave of being occupied. Foster
and Mert evidently had no intention whatever of showing themselves.
Bud went into the drugstore, remained there for five minutes perhaps,
and emerged with a morning paper which he rolled up and put into his
pocket. He had glanced through its feature news, and had read hastily
one front-page article that had nothing whatever to do with the war, but
told about the daring robbery of a jewelry store in San Francisco the
night before.
The safe, it seemed, had been opened almost in plain sight of the street
crowds, with the lights full on in the store. A clever arrangement of
two movable mirrors had served to shield the thief--or thieves. For no
longer than two or three minutes, it seemed, the lights had been off,
and it was thought that the raiders had used the interval of darkness to
move the mirrors into position. Which went far toward proving that the
crime had been carefully planned in advance. Furthermore, the article
stated with some assurance that trusted employees were involved.
Bud also had glanced at the news items of less importance, and had been
startled enough--yet not so much surprised as he would have been a few
hours earlier--to read, under the caption: DARING THIEF STEALS COSTLY
CAR, to learn that a certain rich man of Oakland had lost his new
automobile. The address of the bereaved man had been given, and Bud's
heart had given a flop when he read it. The details of the theft had not
been told, but Bud never noticed their absence. His memory supplied all
that for him with sufficient vividness.
He rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and with the paper stuffed carelessly
into his pocket he went to the car, climbed in, and drove on to
the south, just as matter-of-factly as though he had not just then
discovered that he, Bud Moore, had stolen a six-thousand-dollar
automobile the night before.