A World of Thieves

We set out a little before noon under a dark sky full of thunder rolling up from the Gulf. The rain started to fall while we were still on the bridge to the mainland. By the time we got to the outskirts of Houston it was coming down so hard I couldn’t see five feet in front of the car and had to pull off the road. Wiping the fog off the glass gave us no better view of the outside world at all. We opened a lee window a little to let out the cigarette smoke and had to turn the radio volume all the way up to hear the music over the rain pounding the roof.

The speaker crackled with every flash of lightning as we sang along. “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” “Lover Come Back to Me.” “It Had to Be You.” “Who’s Sorry Now.” When Charlie started vamping to “Makin’Whoopee,” we urged her on with wolf whistles and shouts of “Hubba hubba, red-hot momma!” Russell pretended to be a radio announcer, saying, “Welcome ladies and gents, to the LaSalle Model A Boom-Boom Room, featuring Fifi La Hayes. Yowza, yowza!”

And still the rain came hammering down. After a while Buck and Russell started nipping from their flasks and pouring short ones for Charlie. They let me have a sip but said they didn’t want me getting drunk and driving us into a bayou or head-on into another car. I said it didn’t look like I’d be driving us anywhere for about forty days and forty nights.

We were there for more than two hours before the storm eased enough to afford a sufficient view of the road to try driving on it. The engine cranked up easily enough—“Love them electric starters,” Russell said—but when I tried to get going the tires spun in place and dug themselves in and we got stuck.

“What Ford should’ve put in these cars is an electric pusher,” Buck said. There was nothing to do but let Charlie take the steering wheel while the three of us got out and shoved.

The storm had abated but the rain still fell steadily and we were soaked inside a minute. We cursed at passing cars for the added splashings they gave us as we leaned into the back of the car and struggled for footing and leverage. Charlie revved the engine and the car rocked forward and back in the ruts and the wheels spun and spun and splattered us with mud. We were all shouting at her at once—give it the gas, don’t gun it so much, cut the wheel hard, aim the wheels straight. She had turned off the radio but still couldn’t hear us very well for the rain on the roof and with the windows up. Her hollers came back muffled—“What? What?”

It was a situation to rub tempers a little raw. “Roll down the fucken window, goddammit!” Russell yelled.

She put the window down and stuck her head partway out, shielding herself from the rain with a folded newspaper, and shouted that she did not appreciate him cussing at her like that and would we make up our stupid goddam minds what we wanted her to do.

Just then a large truck went by and raised an enormous splash which could not get any of us any wetter except for Charlie, who was swamped through the open window and hurriedly rolled it up—like she thought she might undo the drenching if only she rolled fast enough. The spectacle had us staggering with laughter.

She glared furiously at us over her shoulder and then the transmission shrieked and the motor raced and the wheels whirled in reverse and found purchase and the car lurched up out of the ruts and came barreling rearward. Russell went sprawling and Buck and I barely managed to scramble out of the way as she roared by. She braked hard and the car slewed to a halt.

“Shitfire,” Buck said, gawking at the car and wiping water from his eyes. “Why the hell didn’t you think to back out of that rut?”

“Why the hell didn’t you think to suggest it?” I said.

Russell slowly got to his feet, cursing steadily and coated with mud. Charlie was laughing behind the windshield like she was watching a Chaplin movie, her hair plastered to her head.

“You damn crazy cooze!” Russell shouted.

Her grin vanished. She gunned the motor and ground the transmission into low gear. Russell hustled over to join me and Buck in the high weeds off the shoulder.

But she didn’t make another try at us. She eased the car forward until she was abreast of us, then reached over and lowered the passenger window a few inches. “Hey there, boys,” she called out, smiling with affected sweetness. “Think it’ll rain?”

“Crazy cooze,” Russell muttered.

“What’s that, baby?” Charlie said. Her eyes narrowed and she gunned the engine.

“He said we could sure use some booze,” Buck said.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “Well, you ain’t gonna get it standing out there in the rain, are you?”

She slid over to the passenger side and gave me a smile and wink as I got behind the wheel and Buck and Russell got in the back. Buck cursed low about the mud we were smearing on the seats and floorboards.

I drove slowly through the continuing downpour while they passed around a flask without saying anything. Then Charlie chuckled and said, “You should’ve seen you all’s faces.”

“Real damn funny,” Russell said. “You might’ve killed us.”

“You’re so cute when you’re scared shitless, baby. Anybody ever tell you?”

That got me and Buck in on her laughter.

Russell stared in disbelief at Buck and me and shook his head. “She about runs over our asses and you all laugh.” Then said to her: “And you ought not to say ‘shit.’ It ain’t ladylike.”

And joined in our guffaws.

I turned off into the first motor camp we came to. Russell and Charlie took one room and Buck and I another. We got cleaned up and changed into dry clothes. Charlie had packed a picnic basket in case we got hungry on the day’s drive, and it now served for our supper. She brought the basket to our room and had Russell spread a blanket on the floor. He muttered about the foolishness of having a picnic on the floor and she said we could have it outside in the dark and rain if it would make him feel less foolish. She laid out paper plates and we sat down to a meal of ham sandwiches and potato chips, deviled eggs and cold fried chicken. We drank paper cups of lemonade dispensed from a glass jug.

A little later the Amos ’n’Andy show came on the radio, and while we laughed at them Buck tended to the nails of his thumbs with a file, keeping them finely serrated for marking cards. Then a music program came on and he and Russell took turns entertaining us with their tricks. Buck needed to shuffle a deck only twice and he’d know any card you picked out of the spread. More impressive was his skill in dealing. Need a ten to fill that inside straight? There it is. An ace or an eight to complete a Hickok full house? Got it. Jack of hearts to make the flush? Here you go. Blackjack was child’s play. If he was showing sixteen, he could easily enough give himself the five, but would as often make it a four, to hold down suspicion. Eighteen, and he’d flick himself a deuce or ace, unless the pot was sizable and the other guy was likely holding twenty—then here came the three.

And Russell with his dice. He’d roll with an honest pair a few times, then next thing you knew he was rolling his shaved bones and cleaning you out. Then the straight pair again. I never could spot him making the switch. He said he’d been even better at it when he had all his fingers. He would put down the dice and hold up his hands and all you’d see is empty palms. Then he’d pick up the dice and switch them, and no matter how much Charlie and I asked him to show us how he did it, he wouldn’t. Buck knew how he did it, and Charlie begged him to tell.

“Well all right, girl,” he said, “if you must know…he uses magic.”

“Goddammit,” Russell said, “there you go again, giving away my trade secrets.”

“Oh, go to hell,” Charlie said. “Both of you.”

“Yes ma’am,” Russell said, saluting like a soldier. “We’re on our way.”

Then we finished off the flasks and called it a night.

At dawn the desk clerk told us the weather report was for still more rain. We decided to drive on rather than sit on our hands in that motor court and wait who knew how long for the sky to break. Charlie bought one of the motor court’s blankets in case she got chilly on the road. We filled the Ford with gasoline at a nearby station and drove off in a steady windless rain under a sky that looked made of gray mud.

West of Houston the highway was in pretty good shape except that the lowest stretches of it were covered