was crazy about a girl who was in some kind of trouble she couldn’t tell me about, and I was getting more hopelessly fouled up every day with this crazy Dolores Harshaw. I had to ditch her while I was still able to.
13
Minutes dragged by, I finished the cigarette and crushed it out in the tray. Then I heard a car coming and could see splashes of light breaking against the trees. It came up past me and went on. I had a fairly good look at it and was sure it was the Oldsmobile. But maybe I’d better wait a few minutes and be sure she wasn’t being followed. Then I had a better idea; it couldn’t be over a quarter mile to the old sawmill, so why not walk? If I heard another car coming I could jump out of the road and take to the timber.
There wasn’t any other car. My eyes became accustomed to the sooty blackness under the trees, and when I came out into the clearing around the old mill I could see fairly well in the starlight. The Olds was parked off the road at the edge of the clearing. She wasn’t in it. Then I spotted her, a gleam of white over by the old sawdust pile. She was standing near the back of it, where it slid off into the shadowy depths of the ravine.
When I came up I saw why she’d been so easy to see. She was wearing only a pair of brief, pale-colored shorts and a halter, and all that stacked and uncovered blondeness was almost luminous in the darkness.
She turned when she heard me, and put her arms up. They tightened around my neck as she came up against me. You could no more halfway kiss her than you could fall part way down an elevator shaft and then change your mind, but even so she knew something was wrong.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Don’t tell me I’m slipping?”
I drew back a little. “What’d you have to see me about?”
“Now I’ve heard everything.”
The anger came boiling up in me again. Maybe she thought she owned me. “Well, if that’s all,” I said, “let’s get on with it. If we hurry, maybe we can make the next train home.”
Her palm exploded against my face and made my eyes sting. I grabbed her arm and tightened up on it. “Keep your hand to yourself, you little witch,” I said, “or I’ll break it off.”
“Well, so we’ve got another girl now, have we?”
“And whose business would that be if I had?”
“It might be mine. You ever think of that?”
“It’s not. And I didn’t.”
“You might be surprised.” She looked up at me with a tantalizing smile. “Now, let’s see. It wouldn’t be that leggy blonde in the loan office, would it? What’s her name? Harper? I saw you at the movies with her. But no, I guess she’s not quite your type. Pretty, all right, but a little young and watered-down for you.”
“Knock it off,” I said. “If you wanted to see me about something, start talking.”
“So it is the little dear?” She laughed. “Well, how do you like that? She must be the sly one, all right, with that innocent look. But I guess you can never tell about that long-underwear type.
I caught myself just in time. I couldn’t let her needle me into losing my head. There was something a little too cocky about her which got home to me, even through the blaze of anger, and I had to find out what she was up to.
“Let’s get down to cases,” I said. “I came out here to tell you something. Don’t call me up any more. I don’t like it. And this is the last time I’m going to meet you out here. You may be crazy, but I’m not. If you’ve got to play in the sawdust to keep yourself from jumping at night, go find yourself another boy friend. I’m through.”
“My goodness,” she said. “You are in a state tonight, aren’t you? What’s she been doing to you, taking you to church? Or maybe you’re still a little nervous?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It must have been just awful. Imagine them thinking you did it.”
I could feel it coming, but went on playing it deadpan. “Well, I guess they had to pick up somebody. But what’s that got to do with it?”
“Well, nothing, I suppose,” she said innocently. “Except that—Well, I suppose I thought you’d be