I still got a big bang out of seeing a customer arrive although I had now been running the service station for three months. It was a good buy, and after spending money on it, I had already doubled the business the previous owner had got out of it.
Clair had been startled when I had told her I intended to buy a service station. She thought I was planning to get a job with a big company in New York. So I was, but after that ’phone call from Lois Spence I had changed my mind.
I guessed Lois had found out that I had reservations for an air passage to New York, and would follow me there. I decided to duck out of sight. If I had been on my own I’d have waited for them, but Clair complicated things. I couldn’t be with her every minute of the day, and they wouldn’t have had much difficulty in handling her if they ever caught up with her.
So I cancelled the air passage, told Clair I wanted to go into the motor business, and pulled out of Paradise Palms in the Buick for a long haul to California.
I found what I was looking for on the Carmel-San Simeon Highway, within easy reach of San Francisco and Los Angeles. It was a small, bright well-kept station, and the owner was only giving up through ill-health.
It had four pumps, ten thousand gallons of storage, oil lube tanks, two air and water towers, and a good bit of waste land for extra buildings. The thing that really decided us was the house that went with the business. It was only a few yards from the service station, and it had a nice little garden. The house itself was cute, and Clair fell for it the moment she saw it. I fell for it too because she would be close to me all the time, and until I was sure we had lost Lois and Bat that was the way I wanted it.
I began to make alterations to the service station as soon as we moved in. I had it painted red and white. Even the pavements of the driveways were divided into red and white squares. I had a big sign hoisted on the roof which read: THE SQUARE SERVICE STATION.
Clair nearly died laughing when she saw the sign, but I knew it was the kind of thing that pulled in suckers.
I added two more air and water towers. Mechanics put in a new type of hydraulic hoist and a complete high-pressure greasing outfit. Near the rest-room building, startling under its new coat of paint and shining inside with added luxuries, was erected a steel shed to house car-washing and polishing equipment.
I hired Bones and a couple of youths to help, and business went ahead with a bang.
One of the youths, Bradley, was a pretty smart mechanic, and I knew most things about the inside of a car. We didn’t reckon to take on any big repair jobs, but we could handle the day-today adjustments that came in; but once we did handle three cars that got involved in a smash.
All day long cars kept coming in, and I was on the jump from six in the morning to seven at night. I fixed up a night shift as I found I was turning away business by closing down at seven. I got an old man and a youth to handle the night trade, which wasn’t heavy, but kept coming, three or four cars an hour.
I had just finished checking the accounts and I found I’d cleared nine hundred dollars after three months’ work. I ran over to the house to let Clair know we weren’t broke yet.
I found her in the kitchen, a cook-book in her hand, a puzzled expression in her eyes.
She found the job of being a housewife tougher than I found my new job. She had started off with little or no knowledge of how to run a house, how to cook, but she wouldn’t hire a help. She said she wanted to learn to be useful, and it was time she knew how to cook anyway. I didn’t dissuade her, reckoning that after a while she’d get tired of it and throw in her hand. But she didn’t. For the first two or three weeks we ate some pretty awful meals. I have a cast-iron stomach so I didn’t complain, and after a while the meals got better; now they were pretty good, and improving all the time.
She kept the house like a new pin, and I finally persuaded her to let one of the youths do the rough work, but the rest of it she continued to do herself.
Hi, honey,” I said, breezing into the kitchen. “I’ve just audited the books. We’re nine hundred
bucks to the good: that’s clear profit, and we don’t owe a cent.”
She turned, laid down the cook-book, laughed at me.
“I believe you’re really crazy about your old gas station,” she said. “And after all those threats about not settling down.”
I put my arm round her. “I’ve been too busy to realize that this is settling down. I’ve never worked so hard in my life. I had the idea that when a guy settled down, he parked his fanny, and let moss grow over him. I guess I was wrong.”
“Don’t say fanny,” she reproved. “It’s vulgar.”
I grinned at her. “Let’s run into San Francisco tonight, and paint the town red,” I said. “It’s time you and I stepped out. We’ve been working now three months without a break. How about it?”
Her eyes lit up. “Yes, let’s do that,” she said, throwing her arms round my neck. “Can you get off early?”
“If we leave just before seven it’ll be time enough. Going to put on your glad rags?”
“Of course, and so are you. It’s time I saw you in something better than those awful old overalls.”
The station buzzer sounded. That told me Bones had someone out front whom he couldn’t handle.
“A little trouble,” I said, kissing Clair. “See how important I am? The moment I turn my back—”
She pushed me out of the kitchen.
“Run away,” she said, “or you won’t have any lunch.”
I beat it back to the station.
There was trouble all right. A big Cadillac had hit the concrete wall of the driveway. Its fender had been pushed in and the bumper was buckled. It was a swell-looking car, and it hurt me to see the damage.
Bones was standing by. His usually smiling face was shiny and dismayed. He rolled his eyes at me as I came up.
“It wasn’t my fault, boss,” he said hurriedly. “The lady got into the wrong gear.”
“Don’t tell such bloody lies, you rotten nigger,” a shrill, hard voice exploded from inside the car. “You waved me on. I thought I had plenty of room.”
I signalled to Bones to scram, then walked up to the car, looked in.
A typical lovely young product of Hollywood sat at the wheel. She was dark, expensively dressed, pretty according to the standard hardness of the Movie colony. She was also very angry, and under her rouge her skin was white as marble.
“See what your blasted nigger’s done to my car,” she stormed as soon as she saw me. “Fetch the manager. I’m going to raise holy hell about this!”
“Start raising it now,” I said quietly. “I’m the owner, manager and office boy all rolled into one. I’m sorry to see such a grand car busted like this.”
She eyed me up and down. “So you’re sorry, are you? What am I supposed to do? Smile and drive away? Let me tell you that you haven’t started to be sorry yet!”
I would have liked to have slapped her, but remembering that customers are always right, I said I’d have the fender fixed for her immediately.
“What?” she snapped. “I wouldn’t let you touch it.” She drummed on the steering wheel. “I must have been crazy to have turned into a hick joint like this. Well, it’ll certainly “be a lesson to me. No more hick joints for me.”
I felt my temper rising, so I walked to the front of the car, inspected the damage. It certainly was pretty bad, and it seemed to me she must have rammed the wall with considerable force.
“Just to get the record straight,” I said, coming back, “just how did this happen?”
“I was reversing … I mean I was coming forward—”
“You were reversing, you mean,” I said. “You couldn’t have come forward from this angle. But you made a mistake in the gears and your car jumped forward.” I glanced inside the car. “If you look, you’ll see your gear is still in bottom.”
She opened the car door, her eyes flashing.
“Are you suggesting I can’t drive a car?” she asked, getting out of the car, facing me.
“It looks that way,” I said, sick of her.
Her mouth tightened, and she swung a slap at my face. I picked it off in mid-air, held her wrist, grinned at her. We were close, and I caught the smell of gin on her breath. I looked at her sharply. She was drunk all right. I
