Clip-clop, clip-clop, jounce, jounce, jounce, jounce, down the deserted dirt road in the moonlight went the two boys on their aged, ramshackle steed. Clever Sam's gait was stiff and bumpy. Cliff rode to it well, but his cousin did not. Herbie clutched Cliff's middle and tried not to think about the pounding at his posteriors. The insides of his legs began to feel warm. Then they grew hot. Then they became fiery. Then they were raw steaks broiling on either side of a red-hot grill sliding up and down, up and down between them—
“Cliff,” faintly, “this is murder.”
“Oh, sorry, Herbie. Can't you post?”
“Wha—” (bounce) “what's post?”
“Every time the horse goes up, you go up. Every time he comes down, you come down. See, like me.”
Herbie flung himself up and down in time with his cousin a few moments, lost the rhythm, came down when Clever Sam was going up, struck hard, and tumbled off the horse into the road. Cliff and the animal vanished into the night.
Herbie stood up, brushed the dirt off his back, rubbed his sore head, and groaned, “Oh, Lord, whose idea was this?”
His cousin came trotting back to him and held out his hand.
“Here, stick your foot in the stirrup. I'll pull you up.”
Herbie obeyed. With a wrench of his arm in its socket that made a dull horrid noise, he was back in his place behind Cliff. His clothes were damp inside with sweat; the night air chilled him.
“I guess trotting is tough on you, Herbie. I'll see if I can get him to single-foot.”
They started off again. But Clever Sam, for all his rich background, had evidently never heard of single-footing. Cliff's efforts to lead him into the gait resulted in an even rougher and more ungainly trot. Herbie felt as though he were being punished for all the sins he had ever committed. From the waist down he seemed to be in flames.
“Ohhhh, Cliff!”
“Hm. I'm afraid to gallop. Well, I know he can lope. Hey, Sam—ck, ck.”
The horse faltered and subsided into an easy rocking motion that was balm to Herbie.
“That's wonderful, Cliff. That's great. Whew!”
And so they loped out to the highway. When Cliff spied the broad ribbon of concrete, he pulled Clever Sam up. The boys jumped to the ground. While Herbie staggered here and there, trying to restore his legs to their normal functioning, his cousin led the horse off the road and went out of sight among thick shrubs and trees. After two minutes he reappeared.
“Whadja do with him, Cliff?”
“Tied him up good an' told him to stay put. He'll be O.K. Nobody won't find him.”
Two cars flashed by in succession along the highway.
“Come on,” said Cliff. “One o' them mighta taken us.”
The boys ran to the main road and stood waiting. Soon a pair of headlights gleamed in the distance. They waved their hands eagerly as the car bore toward them, but it roared past. Then all was silence and cloudy moonlight.
“Not so good,” said Herbie.
“What time is it?”
“Five to twelve.”
“Boy. It's gonna be close.”
Another pair of headlights appeared, far off.
“I got a feeling,” said Herbie. “This is it.”
It was. The car slowed at their summons and stopped a few feet past them. The cousins scampered toward the door held open for them.
“Hop in, fellows,” shouted a husky voice.
The next instant Herbie felt himself yanked by the arm into the bushes. His cousin, Cliff, held his upper arm in a pincers grip, and was dragging him further into the gloom of the woods.
“Hey, what's goin' on?”
“Sh-sh.” Cliff pulled the fat boy with him into the middle of some thick bushes, unmindful of scratched skin and ripping clothes, and crouched. “Dincha see the car when we got up close? The guy's a state trooper!”
TWENTY
Herbie's Ride—II
Herbie's breath failed him for a moment. Then he gasped, “Whew! Thanks, Cliff. I never noticed. It's lucky—”
“Sh-sh! For cryin' out loud!”
The boys heard the car door closing. Then came the steps of the trooper, crunching on twigs and leaves. A flashlight beam poked here and there between the shadowy trees.
“All right, kids! You needn't be afraid of me. Come on out.” The trooper's raised voice was coming from some distance. The boys did not speak or stir. “All I want to know is what you're doing out on the road so late at night. If you're in trouble, I'll help you.”
More cracking of twigs under heavy boots. The flashlight beam hit the bushes in which the boys were hiding, but only a thin gleam filtered through to them. It moved and left them in blackness.
“Come on, now. I can find you easily enough if I want to.”
Pause. Stamping, cracking, beating of bushes, and gyration of flashlight beam. Then:
“O.K. Spend the night in the woods if you prefer. I have a whole highway to patrol. I'm offering you a lift, but have it your own way. I'm leaving.”
The steps moved off. The car door opened and slammed, and the motor roared up and faded away. Cliff began groping out of the bushes. His cousin seized him by the slack of the jacket.
“Are you nuts? Bet he's pullin' a trick. Stay right here.”
They waited ten minutes by the glowing dial of Herbie's wrist-watch. Peculiar noises from the trees—cracks, groans, sighs, hoots—startled them now and again. Crickets were making music with full orchestra. After a while ants began to dispute the terrain with them.
“Hey,” said Cliff, scratching and slapping himself, “do we lay here all night, or what?”
“All right, let's peek now,” whispered Herbie.
The boys made their way to the road. Their two heads poked out of the brush, and suddenly drew in again like a pair of snail's horns.
“He—he's still watchin' for us,” Herbie murmured. “We'll be stuck here forever.”
The boys had seen a car parked by the roadside, its headlights agleam, not fifty feet from them.
“I dunno. It didn't look exactly like the same car.” Cliff slowly poked his head out again. “Nope. It ain't the same.” He stepped boldly into the light. “It's a Buick. There's a fat guy in it. Come on!”
The boys approached the automobile. The inside light was burning, and they could see plainly a stout, grizzled man in a creased green suit, with a pallid face and stubbly jaws, slouched at the wheel, his eyes closed. Half a cigar, ashy and no longer burning, protruded from his mouth. One hand in his lap held a flat brown bottle.
“Asleep,” said Cliff.
“Maybe he's sick or somethin',” said Herbie, and rapped on the driver's window. The fat man started and opened his eyes. He rolled the window down.
“Whaddya want?” He said hoarsely and sleepily.
“If you're goin' to New York, mister, could we have a hitch?” said Herbie.
The fat man squeezed his eyes, shook his head, and rubbed both hands over his face. “Sure, sure, hop in,” he said, and threw open the back door. “Glad you woke me. I pretty near fell asleep three times at the wheel. Hadda stop for a doze for a minute. Like to have company to talk to on these long runs. Keeps me awake.”
The cousins gratefully nestled in the back seat amid boxes, books, and luggage. They noticed a powerful smell in the car, but said nothing. The driver started up the car, shifted gears, and suddenly snapped the motor off and turned on the boys with narrowed bloodshot eyes.
“Hey! What are a coupla kids like you doing out on the road at midnight, anyhow?”
Cliff and Herbie looked at each other helplessly.
“Well, talk, boys. Where are you from?”
“Camp Manitou,” Herbie managed to say.
“What's that?”
“Boys' camp near here.”
“Where you going?”
“New York, like we said.”
“Why?” said the man, with a squint of drunken cunning.
“My brother's dying.”
The driver's suspicious look altered. He spoke more softly.
“Oh. Well, now. Who's this other boy?”
“He's my brother.”
Herbie could feel Cliff jump slightly.
“What? He don't look like he's dying.”
“He ain't. He's O.K. He's my brother Cliff. My brother Lennie is dying.”
“What from?”
“He got run over. My pa sent us a telegram to come home right away.”
“Why aren't you on a train?”
“Ain't no train till morning. We figured we could hitch and maybe get there sooner in case Lennie dies. Mr. Gauss gave us permission. He even drove us out to the highway.”
“Who's Mr. Gauss?”
“He owns the camp. You can call him up an' ask him, only please, mister, hurry.”
The driver said to Cliff, “Is all this true?”
“Why should Herbie lie?” said Cliff.
The driver pondered a moment. He picked up the brown bottle, twisted off the metal cap, and took a drink. Herbie pulled out a handkerchief and sniffled. Luckily he had been required to weep in the last camp show. His imitation was polished.
“Gosh, mister, call up my father an' reverse the charges if you wanna. His name's Jacob Bookbinder, we live in the Bronx, an' the number's Dayton 6174. Or let us outta the car an' we'll get another hitch. We gotta get goin'. How do we know Lennie won't be dead when we get there?” His grief became louder.
“Well, hold on, boy. I'll take you where you're going. I just don't want to be mixed up in trouble, see? I got enough of my own. Heck, I'll drive you right to the door. I go through the Bronx. Sit way back in that seat and relax.”
He started up the car and they went rocketing into the night. Herbie tried to continue the sniffling, but it was hard work. His fiction had conjured up the vivid picture of Lennie Krieger on a bed of pain, which was rather pleasant than otherwise. He soon left off, seeing that the fat man was convinced.
During the next hour and a half they learned that the driver was a Mr. Butcher, of Albany. That by profession he was a seller of dolls, wholesale. That the doll business was terrible. That he intended someday to get into a “line” which didn't require a weekly trip to New York. That his wife was a sour old crab, and thought all he did in New York was have gay times with girls, which was a lie. That there was a new doll in his “line,” the latest thing, which not only cried and closed its eyes but drank water and did astonishing things thereafter. That this doll, “Weepy Willie,” was at present the bread and butter of Mr. Butcher. The boys received this information in an unceasing narrative poured into their ears, punctuated by wheezes, gasps for breath, and occasional sputtering. They gleaned additional facts by observation, such as that Mr. Butcher liked to drive his Buick at seventy-five miles an hour, not slowing for curves; that he was very thirsty, for he kept swallowing drinks from the brown bottle; and that he was still sleepy, for now and then his head would slump on his chest, the automobile would careen, and Mr. Butcher would wake up and snatch the wheel just in time to keep his Buick from climbing a tree. The boys did not at all share Mr. Butcher's sleepiness—they had never, in fact, been more wide awake. After they rounded one sharp curve on two screaming wheels, Cliff suggested in pantomime to Herbie that they open the door and jump from the car. Herbie's whitish face turned a shade whiter, and he shook his head emphatically. His lack of color might have been due to the closeness of the air in the car. All the windows were shut, and a musty mixture of the aromas of old cigars, strong drink, and what can only be described as Mr. Butcher himself, saturated the atmosphere. Once or twice as they sped through the darkness Herbie had the feeling that he was in a nightmare, and that Mr. Butcher would melt away at the sound of a bugle. The next moment a near-collision shaking him to his innermost parts would convince him that it was all excessively real.
But it was not written that Herbie and Cliff should perish that night on the Bronx River Parkway. After a dozen narrow escapes from tragedy, Mr. Butcher and his chariot came whistling into the city streets at a speed that made the boys' hair stand on end. The fat man turned around casually to ask where Homer Avenue was, while his car raced between the “El” pillars of White Plains Road. “Look out!” yelled Cliff, and Mr. Butcher looked out, and swerved the car away from a pillar which was about to fold car and occupants to its bosom.
But after all these honors he kept his word, depositing the boys at Herbie's very doorstep. By this time he was mellow, and swore that if he had had a couple of sons like Cliff and Herbie instead of one sour-faced daughter, the image of her mother, his whole life might have been different. He bade the boys a loving farewell, pressed a “Weepy Willie” doll on them, and drove off to an unknown destiny. Perhaps he is motoring back and forth wildly between New York and Albany to this day. You will be passed by many a car on that highway that could easily have Mr. Butcher at the wheel. But alas, it is all too likely that his lucky charm ran out, and that he now sleeps under flowers.
Herbie looked at his watch and gasped, “Cliff, look!” and extended his arm. It was a quarter to two. Their benefactor had come nearly a hundred miles in an hour and a half. The wonder of gasoline, that gives wheezy fat men the swiftness of eagles!
“We're lucky we got here alive,” said Cliff, still breathing hard.
Herbie looked at the dark apartment house where his mother and father were sleeping. Set down suddenly at dead of night in his old haunts, he felt more than ever that he was in a dream. It was unbelievable that he could mount a flight of steps, ring a bell, and embrace his mother amid the old furniture. In his mind she and the apartment were still a hundred miles away. He shook his head to clear away these dizzying ideas, dropped “Weepy Willie” in the gutter, and said, “Let's go, Cliff. We got a good chance to make it now.”
The boys scampered through the electric-lit silent streets to the Place.
“Will there be anyone there?” said Cliff.
“Just one engineer tendin' the machines,” replied Herbie between gasps. “They make ice all night. But he'll be down the other end from the office. Once we get past him he won't hear us.”
“Maybe we better jump him and tie him up.”
“If it's Irving we better not. Irving is twice as big as Uncle Sandy.”
Cliff got a vivid impression of an Irving twelve feet high, and abandoned the notion of binding and gagging him.
“Hey, what's this?” A block from the Place Herbie stopped short, and pointed at the building in dismay.
“Whatsamatter?”
“The office. It's lit up. Somebody's there!”
Cliff saw that the little high window of the office, facing the street, was a square of bright yellow.
“Maybe it's the engineer, Herbie.”
“Engineers ain't allowed in the office. Who could be there two o'clock in the morning?”
“Might as well find out,” said Cliff. He sprinted for the Place, followed by his laboring cousin. Standing beneath the office window, he placed both hands on the sill, jumped up, peered inside for a moment, and dropped back to the ground.
“Who is it?” panted Herbie as he came up.
“Mr. Krieger,” said Cliff, “an' that guy Powers. They're foolin' around with some big books.”
“We're skunked,” said Herbie. “How can we get to the safe with them there?”
“I dunno.” Cliff went to the wooden door beside the window and pressed his ear against it. “Hey, you can hear 'em.”
Herbie followed his example. The voices of the two men came through the partition, muffled but understandable. Powers sounded very angry.
“—all right. You should have had those figures in a file for me when I came to your house.”
“Not much longer. Soon go cup coffee. Not sure what figures Burlingame wanted. Could be this, could be that—”
“Any businessman knows what a potential buyer wants! Profit and loss statements, depreciation figures, inventories, book value—good grief, man, what wo
uld you want to know before buying an ice plant?”
“Not so fast buying. Burlingame say blue paper maybe good. I sit right there next to you when he say, and—”
“Never mind the blasted blue paper. Burlingame will give us a cash offer conditional on Bookbinder agreeing to sell. When Bookbinder hears the cash figure he'll sell, blue paper or no. It's going to be plenty high.”
“You not know Jake. Jake not sell no million years. Jake want better poor but own boss. Here, all inventory figures.”
“Good. How about profit and loss for the past ten years?”
“Take five more minutes—”
“Confound it, Krieger, this is ridiculous. Where's the file of annual statements? That's all I need.”
“Jake got. Accountant got, too. Not in office. Just books. Simple arrangement.”
“Why, man, haven't you enough interest in your own firm to keep a file of the annual statements in your home? Dragging me down here in the middle of the night—”
“Please. All very last minute. I say this way, peaceable. You telephone me suddenly want all kind figures. One—two—three. Got to have eight o'clock tomorrow morning. Who got all figures in head? Little by little we got all nearly now, just take a few—”
“I'm sorry. I'm tired and nervous. Is there a place around here where we can get coffee right now? Then we can come back and clean this up.”
“Why not?”
Herbie, straining his ear against the door though not comprehending the conversation, heard Mr. Krieger shout, “Irving! Me and Mr. Powers go cup coffee. Back ten minutes.” He heard a faint “O.K.” from the interior of the building. The doorknob started to turn, an inch from Herbie's nose. Like cats the boys darted around the corner of the building, and watched the men come out of the office, cross the avenue, and walk out of sight down a side street.
“What now?” whispered Cliff.
“We got ten minutes. You still game?”
“Come on.”
“Good. You boost me through.”
But as they emerged from the alley Herbie had another idea. “Wait a second,” he said, and cautiously tried the office door. It opened.