were in the fifth grade,” I said. “You were the first woman I ever loved. I remember you moved away the next year and I was heartbroken.”
“For a week, anyway?”
“For almost a month,” I said.
We talked about it for a long time that night, and after a while I guess I forgot what it was that had brought it to her mind in the first place. I don’t think she did, though. The last thing she said when we had to go was, “Please, Jack. Get us out of here. And don’t let it be too long.”
I knew what she meant. Don’t make us late again.
* * *
We raided all the places. The delegation, headed by Soames, came into the sheriff’s office Saturday afternoon and Buford heard them out with that grave, deferential courtesy of his. “Gentlemen, this office is at the service of the citizens of this county. That is what it is here for. Get the warrants, Jack.”
He asked Soames to come along. The Moss Inn was first on the list, and when we got out there all the dice tables were gone out of the back room and the slot machines had disappeared. The next two places were the same. It was dark by the time we got to Abbie Bell’s, and when we went in all the girls except two were gone. One of them was embroidering a doily and the other was sitting in a big chair in the front room reading Better Homes and Gardens. Abbie was wearing steel-rimmed glasses and working on a set of books.
“Can you tell me what this is all about, Mr. Buford?” she asked coldly. “Don’t I have enough trouble trying to make a living out of this rooming house, with the government and all the XYZ’s and ABC’s making me fill out forms and tell them what I did with every nickel I ever made, without you trying to drive away what few roomers I do have?” She followed us upstairs and we looked in all the rooms, finding no one. The beds were neatly made and the rooms clean, and in one of them a canary in a little wire cage was singing cheerfully. Abbie kept up her outraged scolding, but once when the two of us were alone in the rear she looked at me with the deadpan innocence of a child and said quietly out of the corner of her mouth, “Jesus, I hope the laundry don’t come back while you guys are here.”
I watched Soames to see what he thought of it, and wondered if he could be taken in by a trick as old as this. He said nothing at all during the raids, and afterward he thanked Buford with a courtesy that equaled Buford’s own, but once I saw in his eyes the look of a man who has just drawn the other ace. It made me wonder.
I awoke before dawn Sunday and lay there thinking about it, unable to go back to sleep. I could get her out of there. I couldn’t leave for a few more days, or maybe a week, until we saw which way the grand jury was going to jump and whether Soames had anything else up his sleeve, but I could take her away to wait for me somewhere. It wouldn’t be safe to bring her into town, but I could take her down to Colston and get her a room there. Anything to get her out of that swamp and away from him before something happened or we got caught.
I made a pot of coffee and then drove out, picked up the boat and trailer at the end of the slough, and brought them in. I didn’t want to sell the stuff in town if I could help it, because that in itself might look suspicious, as if I felt the heat and were getting ready to run, but there was a man over a New Bosque, the station agent there, who had been trying to buy my motor for a long time, and I thought he might take it. I loaded up everything, fishing tackle and all, and went over there with it. I was going to give up fishing, I said, if I could get the right kind of price for the stuff; there were too many arguments with my wife about it. He laughed and said he knew how it was, he was married too; and we began. I knew I was