By John D.
MacDonald, 1955
ONE
A steady April rain was soaking the
earth. It hadn't been bad to drive through until dusk came. In the half-light
it was hard to see the road. The rain was heavy enough to reflect my headlights
back against the wind-shield. My mileage on the speedometer told me I couldn't
be very far from Hillston.
When I saw
the motel sign ahead on the right I slowed down. It looked fairly new. I turned
in. The parking area was paved with those round brown pebbles that crunch under
the tires. I parked as close to the office as I could get and ran from the car
into the office. A woman with the bright cold eyes and thin sharp movements of
a water bird rented me a room far back from the highway sound. She said the
place was just four miles from the Hillston city limits.
Once I saw
the room I decided that it would do. It would be a good place to stay while I
did what had to be done in Hillston. I stretched out on the bed and wondered if
I had been smart to use my right name on the motel register. But if I could
find the money, there would be no one to say that I was the one who had taken
it. And using my right name wouldn't make any difference at all.
When at last
the rain eased up I went and found a small roadside restaurant. The girl behind
the counter told me where I could buy a bottle of liquor. She seemed open to
any invitation to help me drink it up, but though she was reasonably pretty I
was not interested. I had this other thing on my mind and I wanted to go back
alone and have some drinks and think about it and wonder how I could do it.
 |
| John D. MacDonald |
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
John Dann MacDonald (1916-1986) was an American writer of novels and short
stories, known for his thrillers. MacDonald was a prolific author of crime and
suspense novels, many of them set in his adopted home of Florida.
Maybe you saw pictures of us, the ones who were really bad off when the prisoners were exchanged. I was one of the litter cases. My stomach had stopped digesting the slop they fed us, and I was down to ninety-three pounds. One more week and I would have been buried up there beyond the river like so many others were. I was in bad shape. Not only physically but mentally. I was too sick to be flown back. Memory was all shot. I went right into hospital and they started feeding me through a tube.
It was
during the months in the military hospital back in this country that I began to
sort things out and began to remember more of the details about Timmy Warden of
Hillston. When the intelligence people had interrogated me I had told them how
Timmy died but nothing more than that. I didn't tell them any of the stuff
Timmy had told me.
We were both
captured at the same time in that action near the reservoir. I'd known him
casually. He was in a different platoon. We were together most of the time after
we were captured. Enough has already been written about how it was. It wasn't
good.
That prison
camp experience can change your attitude toward life and toward yourself. It
did that to Timmy Warden. His one thought was to survive. It was that way with
all of us, but Timmy seemed more of a fanatic than anybody else. He had to get
back.
He told me
about it one night. That was after he'd gotten pretty weak. I was still in fair
shape. He told me about it in the dark, whispering to me. I couldn't see his face.
"Tal,
I've got to get back and straighten something out. I've got to. Every time I
think about it I'm ashamed. I thought I was being smart. I thought I was
getting what I wanted. Maybe I've grown up now. I've got to get it straightened
out."
"What was
it you wanted?"
"I
wanted it and I got it, but I can't use it now. I wanted her too, and had her,
but she's no good to me now."
"I'm
not following this so good, Timmy."
He told me
the story then. He had been in business with his brother George Warden. George
was older by six years. George took him in as a partner. George had a flair for
salesmanship and promotion. Timmy was good on the books, as he had a natural
knack for figure work. They had a building supply business, a retail hardware
outlet, a lumberyard, and several concrete trucks.
And George
had a lush, petulant, amoral, discontented young wife named Eloise.
"I
didn't make any play for her, Tal. It just seemed to happen. She was my
brother's wife and I knew it was bad, but I couldn't stop. We had to sneak
around behind his back. Hillston isn't a very big city. We had to be very
careful. I guess I knew all the time what she was. But George thought she was
the best thing that ever walked. She was the one who talked me into running
away with her, Tal. She was the one who said we'd have to have money. So I
started to steal."
He told me
how he did it. A lot of the gimmicks didn't make much sense to me. He did all
the ordering, handled the bank accounts and deposits. It was a big and
profitable operation. He took a little bit here, a little bit there, always in
cash. All the time he was doing it he was carrying on the affair with Eloise.
He said it took nearly two years to squirrel away almost $60,000. The auditors
didn't catch it.
"I
couldn't open a bank account with the money, and I knew better than to put it
in a safety-deposit box. I put the money in those old-fashioned jars. The kind
with the red rubber washer and the wire that clamps the top on. I'd fill them
and bury them.
George kept
worrying about why we weren't making more money. I kept lying to him. Eloise
was getting more restless all the time and more careless. I was afraid George
would find out, and I didn't know what he'd do.
She had me
sort of hypnotized. We finally set the date when we were going to run away.
Everything was planned. And then they called me up. I was reserve. There wasn't
a damn thing I could do about it. I told Eloise that when I got out we'd go
through with it the way we planned. But now I'm stuck here. And now I don't
want to go through with it. I want to get back there and give the money back to
George and tell him the whole thing. I've had too much chance to think it
over."
"How do
you know she hasn't taken the money and left?"
"I
didn't tell her where I put it. It's still there. Nobody can find it."
His story
gave me a lot to think about. Timmy Warden sank lower and lower. By that time
those of us who were left alive had become expert on how long the dying would
last. And I knew that Timmy was one of the dying. I knew he'd never leave there
alive. I tried to find out where the money was buried. But I'd waited a little
too long. He was out of his head. I listened to him rave. I listened to every
word he said.
But in his
raving he never gave away the hiding place. It was in a moment of relative
lucidity that he told me. It was afternoon and he caught my wrist with his
wasted hand. "I'm not going to make it, Tal."
"You'll
make it."
"No.
You go back there and straighten it out. You can do that. Tell George. Give him
the money. Tell him everything."
"Sure.
Where is the money?"
"Tell
him everything."
"Where's
the money hidden?"
"Cindy
would know," he said, suddenly breathless with weak, crazy laughter.
"Cindy would know." And that's all I could get out of him. I was
still strong enough then to use a shovel. I helped dig the hole for Timmy
Warden that night.
Back in the
stateside hospital I thought about that $60,000. I could see those fruit jars
with the tight rolls of bills inside the glass. I would dig them out and rub
the dirt off and see the green gleam of the money. It helped pass the time in
the hospital.
Finally they
let me out. The thought of the money was no longer on the surface of my mind.
It was hidden down underneath. I would think about it, but not very often. I
went back to my job. It seemed pretty tasteless to me. I felt restless and out
of place. I'd used up a lot of emotional energy in order to stay alive and come
back to this, back to my job and back to Charlotte, the girl I had planned to
marry. Now that I was back neither job nor girl seemed enough.
Two weeks
ago they let me go. I don't blame them. I'd been doing my job in a listless
way. I told Charlotte I was going away for a while. Her tears left me
completely untouched. She was just a girl crying, a stranger. I told her I
didn't know where I was going. But I knew I was going to Hillston. The money
was there. And somebody named Cindy who would know how to find it.
I had
started the long trip with an entirely unrealistic anticipation of success. Now
I was not so confident. It seemed that I was searching for more than the sixty
thousand dollars. It seemed to me that I was looking for some meaning or
significance to my life. I had a thousand dollars in traveler's checks and
everything I owned with me. Everything I owned filled two suitcases.
Charlotte
had wept, and it hadn't touched me. I had accepted being fired without any
special interest. Ever since the repatriation, since the hospital, I had felt
like half a man. It was as though the other half of me had been buried and I
was coming to look for it—here in Hillston, a small city I had never seen.
Somehow I had to begin to live again. I had stopped living in a prison camp.
And never come completely to life again.
I drank in
the motel room until my lips felt numb. There was a pay phone in the motel
office. The bird woman looked at me with obvious disapproval but condescended
to change three ones into change for the phone.
I had
forgotten the time difference. Charlotte was having dinner with her people. Her
mother answered the phone. I heard the coldness in her mother's voice. She
called Charlotte.
"Tal?
Tal, where are you?"
"A
place called Hillston."
"Are
you all right? You sound so strange."
"I'm
okay."
"What
are you doing? Are you looking for a job?"
"Not
yet."
She lowered
her voice so I could barely hear her. "Do you want me to come there? I
would, you know, if you want me. And no—no strings, Tal darling."
"No. I
just called so you'd know I'm all right."
"Thank
you for calling, darling."
"Well
... good-by."
"Please
write to me."
I promised
and hung up and went back to my room. I wanted things to be the way they had
once been between us. I did not want to hurt her. I did not want to hurt
myself. But I felt as if a whole area in my mind was dead and numb. The part
where she had once been. She had been loyal while I had been gone. She was the
one who had the faith I would return. She did not deserve this.
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