“That’s right.”
She looked at him. He was chewing gum and his face was completely relaxed. She looked at his big hands on the steering-wheel and again her body melted in desire for him.
It wasn’t until they had begun to climb the twisting road to Chur that she began her probe.
“Where did you go last night, Larry?” she asked abruptly.
He whipped the Mercedes past a Peugeot 504, then stormed up the road with the speedometer needle at 180 k.p.h.
“Last night, ma’am?”
“You are driving too fast!”
“Sorry, ma’am,” and the needle drifted down to 130.
“I asked you where you were last night.”
“In the hotel, ma’am.”
She clenched her hands into fists.
“Don’t lie to me!” She was shocked to hear how shrill her voice sounded. She paused, then controlling her voice, she went on, “I wanted to speak to you. They told me you had gone out. Where did you go?”
He shot the car past a Jaguar. The driver tapped his horn as a protest at the speed of the Mercedes.
“You are driving too fast, Larry… stop it!”
“Yes, ma’am,” and the speed of the car slackened.
“Where were you last night?” she persisted.
“I went for a walk.” He glanced at her, then away. “Des that bother you, ma’am?”
The gentle rebuke was like a slap in the face to her. She was losing her head about this boy, she told herself. Why shouldn’t he go for a walk if he wanted to? Because she had longed for him and still longed for him, she realized she was making a drama out of everything he did.
“No… it didn’t bother me,” she said, steadying her voice. “I just wondered where you were.”
“I took a look at the town.” His jaws moved rhythmically as he chewed. “It’s not much. I got cold. I was glad to get into bed.”
“Yes.” She had a feeling he was lying but she wasn’t sure.
They drove for the next hour in silence and it irritated her that he seemed quite happy to drive and not to have to listen to anything she might say. When they came to the entrance to the Bernadino tunnel and he flicked on his dipped headlights, she remembered the call to Hamburg.
She said, “The hotel charged me for a call to Hamburg. They said you had made it.”
She was watching him, but his face remained relaxed and he continued to chew.
“That’s right, ma’am. I made the call. I wanted news of Ron. Excuse me if I did wrong.”
She drew in a long, slow breath. His constant ‘excuse me’s’ were gnawing at her nerves.
“How is Ron?”
“He’s okay, ma’am.”
“Have the police released him?”
His eyes shifted to her and then away.
“Yeah.”
“So what is he doing now?”
Watching him, she had a feeling she had dropped salt on a snail. He retreated into a shell. His blank expression, his gum chewing told her it was a shell she wasn’t going to penetrate.
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
“Didn’t you ask him?”
“I didn’t speak to him. I spoke to one of his friends. He just told me Ron was out.”
She shrugged. He didn’t want to confide in her… after all, why should he?
The run through the tunnel took some minutes.
“The road ahead is tricky and dangerous, Larry. I know it well. I will drive,” she said when she saw they were reaching the end of the tunnel.
“Just as you say, ma’am.”
She looked at the gas gauge.
“There’s a service station not far from the end of the tunnel. We’ll change there.”
“Okay, ma’am.”
Ten kilometres beyond the tunnel they came to the service station and Larry stopped the car by the pumps.
He got out and she slid under the driving wheel as the attendant came out of his shelter.
She told him to fill the tank.
Larry came around and got in the passenger’s seat.
“Pay him,” she said. “It’ll be thirty francs.”
“What was that, ma’am?”
At the sound of the startled note in his voice, she looked sharply at him. He immediately shifted his eyes.
“I said… pay him thirty francs!” she snapped.
He shifted uneasily.
“Excuse me, ma’am… I haven’t thirty francs,” he said and she saw his face was now beetroot red.
She lifted her hands, then dropped them on her mink covered lap.
“All right, Larry.” She opened her bag and paid the attendant twenty-seven francs and gave him a franc tip. Then she shifted into gear and drove out on to the broad mountain road. When they were out of sight of the gas station, she drew in against the side of the mountain and stopped the car. She turned off the engine, took out her cigarette case and lit a cigarette.
“I would like to get this straight, Larry,” she said.
He looked furtively at her.
“What was that, ma’am?”
“I want an explanation. I gave you three hundred marks in Bonn. The meal couldn’t have been more than twenty marks so you had a balance of around two hundred and eighty. I then gave you fifteen hundred francs to get clothes. You told me you had something over from that. You also told me twice that you do not accept money. Now you can’t even find thirty francs… did you lose what I gave you?”
He rubbed the side of his jaw as he hesitated, then he nodded.
“Yeah… I guess I did.”
She stared at him.
“But how did you lose all that money, Larry?”
He chewed on his gum and she could see sweat-beads forming on his forehead.
“I guess I just lost it, ma’am.”
“Do you expect me to accept such a stupid answer?” The angry snap in her voice stiffened him. He remained silent, staring through the wind shield at the falling snow.
“It’s a lot of money to lose,” she went on, softening her voice when she saw he wasn’t going to reply. “How did you lose it?”
Still he said nothing. If he were wearing his cap she was sure he would be pulling at the peak.
“Larry! Will you please answer my question! Did some woman get it from you last night?”
He moved uneasily, then he nodded.
“I guess that’s how it happened, ma’am.”
She thought of the previous evening. The terrible letdown when she had been told he had gone out. She felt so frustrated she couldn’t speak for several seconds. Finally she said, her voice unsteady, “You wanted a woman and you went out in the snow to look for one… is that right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She closed her eyes, her hands turning into fists.
There was a long silence, then she said, “Tell me about it.”
Again he shifted uneasily.
“There’s nothing to tell, ma’am… excuse me… I’m sorry.”
