hundred times a day, but stayed away from the place. The uproar over the robbery was dying down a little, but I knew now I was being watched. The whole thing telegraphed itself. They’d given up too easily when they got that phone call from Harshaw. The alibi she’d handed me was second-hand and hearsay, coming to them through Harshaw, and yet they’d just folded up and quit as if she’d already testified to it under oath. I wasn’t free; I was just being allowed to run around on the end of a line until I hanged myself. Well, it was all right; two could play at that game. As long as I left the money where it was, I was safe. They had nothing else to go on, and they’d never find it.
Gulick and I were sitting in the office around four o’clock Thursday afternoon when the phone rang. He answered.
“Hello,” he said. “Harshaw’s Car Lot. Hello! Hello!” Then he put the receiver back in the cradle.
“Wrong number?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “They just hung up.”
About twenty minutes later the same thing happened again. I began to have a feeling about it then. The third time it rang he was outside and I answered myself. My hunch was right.
“It’s about time you answered,” she said. Her voice was pitched very low and I had a little trouble hearing it.
“We didn’t expect you back so soon,” I said, giving it the employee-to-boss’s-wife treatment. “I hope you had a nice trip.”
“Aren’t you cute?” she said. “Cut it out.”
“I didn’t think you’d be back till Monday.”
“I’ll tell you about that. When I see you. Tonight, that is.”
I looked up just then and saw Gulick coming back in from the lot. “Well, I don’t know.” I said. “It depends on how much you want for it. That model’s three years old.”
She was fast enough on the uptake. “Oh,” she said, “So old prissy-pants is there?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s right.”
“Well, he can’t hear me. So listen. Go to the same place you went before—“
Gulick sat down and started reading the paper at the next desk. “I don’t think we can made any deal on that basis,” I said.
“Don’t you really?” she asked softly. Something in her voice told me she was enjoying it.
“No.”
“Well, that is too bad, isn’t it?” she purred. Then she went on, “Oh, by the way, wasn’t it lucky I saw you over there the other day at the fire? Just suppose I’d missed you.”
“Yes, that’s right,” I said. I could feel the snare begin to tighten around my neck. It was nylon and very smooth, and all she was doing was adjusting my tie for me, the dirty little…
“I did so want to see you,” she said regretfully. “But of course, if you’ve got another date—“
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. ‘I’ll think it over.”
“You’re so nice. The same time as before, then?”
“Yes.”
“All right. ‘Bye now.”
I was furious as I drove out the highway after dark, but I was scared too. If it had been dangerous before, it was suicidal now. There wasn’t only Harshaw and the gossips to think about; there was that Sheriff. She had furnished me with an alibi, so how long would it take him to get suspicious if he even heard of our being seen together? And what were they doing back here on Thursday, four days ahead of time? It was funny, too, that he hadn’t come to the office. The whole thing was crazy.
Just before I turned off at the old gravel pit I checked the road behind me. There were some other headlights, two or three sets of them, about a half mile back. I made my turn anyway, and drove on into the timber. All the cars went on past without slowing down. I still wasn’t sure, though, and I felt uneasy.
I drove along the road until I found what I was looking for, a place where I could pull off into the trees and get the car out of sight. After I got it turned around facing the road again I cut the lights and waited. I’d have a pretty good look at anyone going past, but there’d be no chance he’d see me back of that screen of leaves and underbrush.
I lighted a cigarette and smoked it out nervously, listening to the night sounds and thinking of the dangerous mess I was drifting further into all the time. I had twelve thousand dollars I couldn’t touch, I