Lemons Never Lie

back across the floor listening to it hiss. He knew that one open burner would be sufficient to cause an explosion, and that if the stove wasn't completely destroyed some sharp-eyed investigator might notice if more than one burner switch was turned to on.

He opened the rear door again, and the outside world still seemed just as empty of people. Standing in the slightly open doorway, he turned back to the room, struck the match on the wall beside the door, held it with the flaming end downward until it had caught well, and then tossed it gently toward the dead woman.

It didn't reach all the way, but landed on one of the wet trails on the floor. There was a tiny phum! and yellowish flames that were almost invisible skittered away along the trails, like ghosts of midget racers.

Grofield stepped out, shut the door behind him. He trotted away across the neat yard, jumped the low fence, and jogged around the rear of the farm-equipment dealership, leaving the way he had come. His car was a half mile down the road, in a diner's parking lot. He reached it without incident, climbed aboard, and drove away. It was a mark of how completely he thought of this as a personal thing he was on and not work that he was driving his own car, the used Chevy Nova.

He circled the area, and half an hour later he couldn't resist driving back that way to see how it had worked out. Sometimes a fire is a tougher thing to start than it should be.

A state trooper was in the road a quarter mile from the house, directing traffic down a side road detour. Grofield stopped and stuck his head out and called, 'What's the matter, officer?'

'Just keep moving,' the trooper said.

'Yes, sir,' Grofield said, and made the turn, following the other shunted traffic. He didn't get to see the house at all.

5

Grofield pulled the car off the road and stopped behind the tractor-trailer rig. When he got out and walked around the truck to the bank of roadside phone booths, he noticed the legend on the truck cab's door: UNIVERSAL FUR STORAGE 210-16 Pine Street Phone 378-9825. Why was that so familiar? Then he remembered the truck in the St. Louis job, the one Hughes had bought from Purgy. It was the same company!

The same truck? No, this one was newer, the cab was newer. Grofield shook his head and went on to the booths.

The driver of the truck was in the first of the four booths, yelling his head off. Grofield couldn't make out the words through the closed glass doors, but whatever the trucker was mad about he was really mad. He had his cap clutched in his hand and kept waving it over his head as he shouted, his movements restricted by the closed-in glass walls of the booth.

Grofield went on down to the last booth at the other end, and stepped inside, leaving the door open while dialing. This was his seventh and last call, and he was making each of them from a different phone booth.

He dialed 207, the area code for Maine, and then the number. An operator came on and asked for a dollar seventy for the first three minutes. Grofield's right jacket pocket was sagging with change; he produced coin after coin to bong into the slots until he'd reached a dollar seventy. 'There.'

'Thank you, sir.'

Then there was nothing for a long while, and then clicking, and then nothing, and then a loud click, and then ringing, and finally a woman's voice saying, 'New Electric Diner.'

'Handy McKay, please.'

'Hold on a minute.'

'Sure.'

When McKay came on, Grofield said, 'This is Alan Grofield. I met you with Parker a couple times, and you've passed messages on to him.'

'I remember you,' McKay said. 'You want another message sent?'

'No. This time I'm looking for somebody else. He's in the same business I'm in, but we don't have any friends in common. I was hoping somebody I know would know how I could get in touch with him.'

'I'm kind of out of touch with everybody these days,' McKay said. 'Except Parker. What's your man's name?'

'Myers. Andrew Myers. I'm told he did some work around the Texas area.'

'I don't know him. Sorry.'

'He's been traveling the last week or so with a guy named Harry Brock. Big strong guy, not very smart.'

'Don't know him either. I could ask a couple of questions for you.'

'I'd appreciate it.'

'Where can you be reached?'

'Henrietta Motel, Wichita Falls, Texas. Area code 817, phone num-'

'Hold on, not so fast.'

Grofield repeated everything, more slowly, and then said, 'I'm only going to be there till noon tomorrow.'

'I'll pass the word,' Handy McKay promised.

Grofield hung up and waited in the booth a few seconds, thinking about calling Mary. But he had nothing to say to her yet, and she knew not to expect him to keep in touch every day like a machine parts salesman on the road, so he left the booth and walked on around the truck and back to his Chevy. The trucker was still in the